H,

I am helping set up a volunteer action group in Cornwall to tackle the problem of abandoned boats polluting our estuarine environments.

We could really do with some help developing a BETA version of a wreck database and map which  we will use to get people involved and build an evidence base. The more ambitious plan is to develop it into a campaign website which can be easily shared and adapted by wreck action groups across the UK.

Some background

There are over 4,500 moorings on the Fal Estuary; that's probably over 30,000 tonnes of mostly plastic boats. Yet, there is no plan for dealing with them at the end of their lives. Cars go to the scrapyard and get recycled into new cars. Boats find a corner of a creek to die. Over time they degrade and leak microplastics, oil, toxic paints and other pollutants into the ocean.

Like many environmental problems, acting early and solving the problem before it gets too big to solve will save money in the long run. The problem of end of life boats is only going to get bigger. The majority of today’s foreshore wrecks are boats made in the 70’s and 80’s. Boats have got bigger and production volumes increased.

The good news is this is one environmental problem we can solve. The cost should be recoverable from boat owners and the marine industry without too much burden, there is jobs potential in scrappage and recycling facilities and re-using materials, and the environmental benefits are immediate and local. France has solved the problem of end of life boats and provides a blue print we can follow. France’s solution has enabled 8,500 boats to be recycled over the last 4 years.

I can share a presentation on the problem of end of life boats and solutions for dealing with it. The presentation includes some policy proposals for National and Local Gov and some ideas for what local community groups can do. There is a building momentum of interest in this around the Fal and Helford communities and, we’ve learned, elsewhere.

The tech help we need

The purpose of the wreck map and database is to:

• Raise awareness of the problem and engage creek communities by giving people something to do – go out and take photos of wrecks in their creek and enter them into the wreck map and database.
• Build an evidence base of the scale of the problem.
• Provide the data needed to estimate the volume of materials to be processed.
• Locate and prioritise the foreshore wrecks which need dealing with.

I have made a BETA version using a Google Form linked to a Google Sheet and Google My Map. Form link is: https://forms.gle/tQqY2S6Do4na1wft6

I can share the rest in a workspace.

The problems with the BETA version as it is are:

• You need a Google account to enter data, but we can live with that for the BETA version.
• Map does not auto update from the form – you have to manually upload it, so people won’t be rewarded by seeing their wreck pop up in the map as soon as they have entered it.
• Photos go to googledrive and are not shown in the form (which would be helpful) and have to be manually added to each entry on the map.
• The map displays all the form data when we only want to display some of the columns. I could get around this by making a copy of the sheet each time I upload to the map and delete the columns we don’t want.
• What3words is via a link rather than an embedded window, but we can live with that.
• It’s on my work Google Account and my name appears on the map.

We would really appreciate some help fixing those problems. I appreciate they not be fixable within the Google set up and it may need to be re-built.

If we go to the next stage of developing this into a campaign site which could be shared and used by wreck action groups across the UK, some features to add would include:

• ‘Claim this boat’ button on the map – that will involve personal data so we would need data protection wording and policy.
• ‘This wreck will be cleared’ status notice (with pop details of legally compliant clearance notice which wreck action groups or harbour authorities use).
• ‘This wreck has been cleared’ status notice (and add photos of clearance).
• Working with a marine architect, could we create a formulae in the database which automatically estimates the volume of different materials for each wreck?
• Data downloadable for a selected geo area.
• To be able to add local admins from each wreck action group, whilst having protections that they can’t mess the whole thing up and lose the data.
• The map and database would be embeddable in a campaign site, which could be easily replicated by wreck action groups across the UK.

If 'tech for wrecks' appeals to anyone in the Social Coder network, I would love to have a chat with them. We don’t have any funds at the moment and really need a quick fix and compromise for the BETA version so we can get going. I would be happy to help try and find a grant funder to support the cost of doing things properly for the sharable campaign site.