Borrow beach litter analysis equipment from the library and spend a day at the beach

Borrow beach litter analysis equipment from the library

The beach litter analysis equipment box contains five sets of analysis equipment, enabling school classes or other groups to examine the state of the beach at the same time. The borrowable box contains all the materials needed, as well as instructions for analysing beach litter. If you want to, you can bring your own bucket for the trip. The instructions will help you identify litter, and the magnifying glasses included in the equipment will enable you to take a closer look at pieces of litter.

You can borrow beach litter analysis equipment from the libraries of Herttoniemi, Kalasatama, Munkkiniemi, Viikki and Vuosaari, as well as Central Library Oodi. You can see available analysis equipment boxes registered in the library system via the Helmet online library. You can reserve an analysis equipment box to be picked up the same day by calling the library.

The loan period set for beach litter analysis equipment in the library system is 14 days. However, you should only borrow the equipment for as long as you need them to enable as many groups as possible to have a research trip. Please clean and return the equipment after your beach trip day for others to borrow.

Beach litter research reveals what kind of plastic litter is found on the beaches of Helsinki

“We encourage school, camp and hobby groups in Helsinki to take part in beach litter research. Our experience has shown that analysing beach litter is suitable for a wide variety of groups and children of different ages,” researcher Anna-Riina Mustonen from SYKE points out.

More than half of small pieces of litter found on beaches are plastic. The beaches of Helsinki also have plenty of plastic litter. For example, polystyrene and small plastic pellets used to make plastic products can be found in large quantities in certain places.

“The litter observations reported in 2024 will be used to form the first estimate of how much small-scale litter there is on beaches in Finland. Researchers cannot be everywhere, so observations reported by citizens are very important,” Mustonen says.

Remember to report your litter findings

Be sure to report your findings after your trip so that your litter observations can be used as research data. Even if you do not find any litter, reporting zero results is also important for charting the overall situation.

Instructions for analysing litter and reporting the results are provided in the borrowable analysis equipment box. You can also find them in Finnish in the Mappa material bank.