This app is a great tool that we can all use to fight back against all sorts of pollution. Just make sure your location setting is ON for your device AND your camera app before you photograph the pollution, and know that when you upload the picture the information in your photograph will be used to help our planet.

I am a huge fan and supporter of Plastic Patrol, and I so badly want this app to succeed, but I have to admit that we have done several litter picks recently and not uploaded them simply because this app is really finicky to use and tedious. It takes almost as much time to enter each brand and item than it does to pick them up. It would be much easier if you could manually enter quantities rather than having to click the + sign to count the number of items. The + button is tiny and often doesn’t register the count. I should just be able to choose a brand/item from a drop down/scroll menu and then manually type in the number, or even a scroll option for quantity. When you’re doing 100+ item litter picks like we do, entering the + sign 50 times is frustrating.

I really want this to work and I’ve been very patient with it but it’s so frustrating to use. I often find once I’ve added all the details and then click ‘submit’, the app crashes and the details don’t upload. The +/- buttons are tiny too and not very responsive so I’ll sit there for ages adding 50 wet wipes. I was asked to add brand names to my submissions which takes ages and the first time I did a huge upload with brand names, the app crashed. So I’ve given up with it for the time being until the bugs are fixed.

It’s often difficult for the elderly or infirm to participate in environmental issues, but this way we can feel that we’re making a contribution in some small way, not just tut-tutting and leaving it to others.