Marine Debris Tracker

Shame on National Geographic for not improving this poorly produced app. Do you want to stand on the beach waiting over 5 minutes for this app to finish “fetching” and “loading” each time you want to use it? I was able to walk home after attempting to document some plastic trash and it has yet to open, hence this disparaging review. Sadly, deleting this nonfunctional app will be my next action.

I threw soap at my bathroom wall to see what would happen and I lost it Still don’t know where it is

Some days, the app opens within a few seconds, other days the app will keep saying “fetching data” forever and never open. I use this app for class assignments and the inconsistency it stressful.

Marine Debris Tracker comes with a handful of bugs but when it works it’s perfect for everything my friends have been looking for!

Edit: my issue below was fixed after I reinstalled the app. It now seems to work without issue. Docking one star just for its inconsistent use of uploading, but otherwise the app I feel is great. This app is easy to use, and everything is laid out nicely, but ultimately doesn’t work at the most important step, uploading your data. As soon as I try to upload my data, it tells me something went wrong and to cancel. I haven’t been able to upload any of the information I collected, making the app currently useless.

Had been working fine for a while, but stopped adding up my submissions for the past 6 months. I’ve deleted & redownloaded and also logged out & relogged in. I’ve tried messaging the company via FB messenger & commenting on their FB post. No response.

Labeling every single piece of trash takes a lot of work. The GPS was not accurate when I looked at the map of where it said we had been. I love the idea and the motivation behind the app, but I won’t be using it again.

Hands off to those at the University of Georgia for creating this app. I’ve found and removed hundreds of pieces of debris so far. Once you start actually paying attention to your environment, you see just how much trash there is. Everyone should have this app not only to clean their local environment but to also help researchers understand where debris is and how it is moving.

I use this app with my family when we travel to the beach or the river. Easy to use, and my kids love seeing our data on the Debris Tracker map.

Love using this app for tracking litter on beach clean ups or when collecting litter inland.