September’s Debris Month of Action was a month chock full of underwater cleanup and data reporting activity. To date, more than 130 committed AWARE leaders reported data from the underwater trash they found last month. In total, data was reported from 160 Dive Against Debris surveys held at 90 locations around the world.

For those who submitted valuable data and those about to report, we salute you! In the meantime, what happens to all the information you collect on underwater trash? Why does Project AWARE care how many tires, fishing nets, plastic bottles and weird debris items divers find down there?

First, there is no Dive Against Debris without your data. If we’re going to help change waste management policies, we need data that paints a true picture of debris beneath the surface. We can’t do it without the involvement of citizen scientists like you. 

And rest assured, your data didn’t vaporize after submission or disappear into a big black hole of lost information. We have it in hand and we’re hard at work to bring about the next stage of Dive Against Debris.

This is still a new program and a new way to analyze data for meaningful results. So once testing phases end this year, we’ll begin to visualize the data you submit online, and place it on a map so that we can all begin to see what data we have and where additional data is needed most.

In the meantime, please keep Diving Against Debris and sharing your feedbackwith us. This is not just an event held in September – you and your dive buddies can Dive Against Debris anytime, anywhere. In fact, our ocean depends on it.

Join the ranks of dedicated divers around the globe. See what it takes to Dive Against Debris today. Start here, with this informational guide.