Spearhead Project Earth (SPE) has been assisting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Marine Debris Monitoring and Assessment Project (MDMAP) since 2024. MDMAP is NOAA’s flagship marine debris initiative, focused on standardized data collection of shoreline waste worldwide. SPE has been collecting data from the Pennsylvania side of the Burlington-Bristol Bridge. Zach Nemec, a Coastal Outreach Specialist with Pennsylvania Sea Grant, has led SPE’s data collection initiative, making data publicly available.

SPE’s ongoing data collection can be viewed on NOAA’s MDMAP website: https://mdmap.orr.noaa.gov/site/1525. As this initiative progresses, SPE is expanding the scope of sampling sites along the Delaware River to attain a broader understanding of the types and amount of debris present. SPE’s goal is to advocate policy change, increase awareness, and improve environmental health.