The First Venture

After a nice slow start to the day, my first plan of the day was to try my creation, the super-powered litter picker (with attached camera and GPS), in the local neighbourhood.

I grabbed the battery, some spare electrical tape and a pair of scissors and headed to the Jackmobile (my bicycle).

It didn't take long to spot my first target - in fact I didn't even make it onto the road.

I decided the trash was going to be there when I got back, so left it where it was and headed to the place I planned to activate the litter picker.

As expected, there was trash to be had, so I pulled over and connected the battery, taped it in place waited for the GPS to start its 1 pulse-per-second flash.

The first catch was a beer can, a water bottle and a napkin.

Turns out litter-picking from a bicycle is not quite as easy as I hoped, especially with brakes that were needing some TLC. Going at slow pace, I was able to spot litter and then turn around and pick it up.

After riding down to Westfield Common and picking a few bits round the Pink Pig, I decided to head to the Basingstoke Canal towpath via the flat to drop off what I had already picked up.

I found litter scattered along the towpath and a couple of trees with lots of cans underneath them.

The bad connection on the battery started playing up and the Pi started turning off and on again, and not in the fix it way.

I headed back to base to review the haul and the footage.

The First Litter Haul

The haul totalled of around 2 shopping bags worth of litter, 60% of which was plastic bottles and can - a perfect example of why a deposit return schema is sorely needed in the UK. It also contained a pair of medical gloves, plucked from a tree, and two face masks.

The Footage

Unfortunately, the haul wasn't as good on the Pi.

Just before leaving, I added some code to record the track I took, which unfortunately upset the recording of the positions on the images.

The trigger on the upper part of the handle along with the bad battery connection also caused Pi not to capture images of most of the litter picked along the towpath.

I fixed the code, taped off the twitchy part of the trigger and sorted a way to position the battery so that it did not keep resetting the Pi.

To The Beach

Ready for round two, I caught the train down to Littlehampton for the MCS Great British Beach Clean event.

During the beach clean, the Pi and trigger worked much better. Unfortunately, the litter picker was not the best at picking the small bits of plastic and cigarette butts.

The Results

Unfortunately, I don't have a full tally of litter I picked up on my birthday, but have made the following clip from the images captured by the Pi during the picking. Definitely room for improvement, but the concept proved a success.