Document is current

Article History

Received: 8 October 2021

Accepted: 11 April 2022

First Online: 6 June 2022

Declarations

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: Not applicable.

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: The authors of this publication represent a diverse group of interests from regulators, regulatees, for profit companies, nonprofit organizations, government personnel, and academics who all have a stake in the problem of trash in the environment and want to see it ended. The corresponding author, Win Cowger, received no income from any invested entity. All authors confirm that none of these affiliations constitute actual conflicts of interest for the integrity of the manuscript. To see a full list of related funding for all coauthors please see below.The Gray Lab (A. Gray, W. Cowger, and H. Hapich) would like to report that the funding they received from the Benioff Ocean Institute was 50% donated by the Coca Cola company, a plastic product producer, but the company had no input with the group about this publication. The Gray Lab has received funding through-flow from CalTrans, which is a regulated entity, but none of those funds were allocated to this project. The Gray Lab has received funding from Renew Oceans, a nonprofit that was supported by the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, a consortium of plastic producers, but the funds were not allocated to this project. The Gray Lab also receives funding from the NOAA Marine Debris Program, which is mandated to identify, determine sources of, assess, prevent, reduce, and remove marine debris. Win Cowger is on the Board of the Moore Institute of Plastic Pollution Research which is a nonprofit group focused on ending plastic pollution. Many authors are affiliated with the California Water Monitoring Council’s Trash Monitoring Workgroup.Margaret McCauley is the Trash Free Waters Program Lead for EPA’s Region 10, the Pacific Northwest. In this role she endeavors to improve metrics for measuring and understanding what and how materials escape from management into waters of the U.S.In recent years, Tony Hale and his colleague Shelly Moore served as co-Pis of the California Ocean Protection Council-funded Trash Monitoring Standards project. They also served as co-PIs on a project to devise a cigarette butt monitoring method, funded by the California Department of Public Health. The State Water Resources Control Board, an organization that regulates trash in waters, and the USEPA also fund the San Francisco Estuary Institute on a number of projects.Neil Tangri is the Science and Policy Director at GAIA, a non-profit organization that advocates for stronger policies to reduce plastic pollution.Litterati is a registered Delaware C Corp, the funding sources over the last several years have been from 3 sources 1. Private investment from accredited angel investors, 2. Grant funding from National Science Foundation under the SBIR grant and the Alliance to End Plastic Waste. 3. Commercial revenue from selling of product & services. None of these funding sources have supported or influenced the companies transparency goals or affected the input to this paper in determining the taxonomy mapping.Sherry Lippiatt served as the NOAA Marine Debris Program (NOAA MDP) California Regional Coordinator, under contract with I.M. Systems Group and Lynker Technologies, during the development of this manuscript. The NOAA MDP, in partnership with the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation contributed funding to the development of the trash taxonomy tool.Kathryn Youngblood is the Citizen Science Director for Marine Debris Tracker and a Research Engineer at the University of Georgia Circularity Informatics Lab. Debris Tracker () is a free mobile application used by researchers, non-profit organizations, educators, and community members to collect geospatial data on marine, aquatic, and terrestrial debris. The app was developed with funding from NOAA in partnership with the University of Georgia and is now powered by Morgan Stanley. Data stewardship and operations are housed at the University of Georgia.Gary Conley: Nothing to declare.Yunfan Kang: Nothing to declare.Antoinette Vermilye: Nothing to declare.John Vermilye: Nothing to declare.Charles Moore: Nothing to declare.Jeremiah Mock: Nothing to declare.Shelly Moore: Nothing to declare.Walter Yu: Nothing to declare.Eric Baggs: Nothing to declare.