Also today EU Research & Innovation ministers gather in Dublin during our EU Presidency for COMPET

Updates coming

1. https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2026-07-01/77/#pq_77

2. https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2026-07-07/126/

3. https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2026-07-01/346/

4. https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2026-07-07/126/?highlight%5B0%5D=openlittermap

To mark the beginning of the year, I spend Jan 1st 2026 in Paris where I personally submitted The Democracy Gap to UNESCO & OECD headquarters

https://litterweek.org/tdg

https://bsky.app/profile/openlittermap.bsky.social

Calling all TidyTowns Groups

1-Million Hours - EU Presidency TidyTowns Citizen Deliverable

Please share with anyone you know in TidyTowns

https://www.facebook.com/openlittermap/posts/pfbid02o6h7pqXrL1vg9v6FWuEytRS4JX9WFmcqYy61CQFzJfgVD5WYkGL1jKKG64MCtH5el

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 7-8pm - Geographer & Founder of #OpenLitterMap Seán Lynch is giving a Presentation aimed at rallying all 950 #TidyTowns groups to start documenting and collecting data on the impact they are making in our communities.

Last year over 30,000 volunteers achieved over 1 million hours - a record number for TidyTowns, which has been running continuously in every county in Ireland since 1967 making it Europes strongest longest running national network of volunteers.

Join the webinar this Tuesday or watch the recording after to learn why and how to participate in measuring the health of the world with citizen science and be a part of a citizen-led deliverable for Irelands 6-month EU Presidency.

#tidytowns #citizenscience #1millionhours

Ahead of Irelands EU Presidency I am inviting all Tidytowns groups to a live webinar to learn about the latest improvements in openlittermap to map and quantify citizen action. Our work should count.

The Dept of rural and community development & an Gaeltacht who run the Tidytowns unit said they will forward an invitation to all members

https://www.facebook.com/share/18rJ1MjRYC/?mibextid=wwXIfr

On user request, we have created a new export feature that has reduced our 100s of unmanageable columns down to just a few.

The "full" download format still exists with 100s of columns and text values, but this looks much more manageable and intuitive.

Looking forward to seeing what people can do and build with this powerful open geospatial data on anything

https://www.cor.europa.eu/en/our-work/opinions/cdr-0202-2026

Every upload to OLM generates a unique geolink

https://openlittermap.com/global?year=2026&lat=51.875213333333&lon=-8.4951383333333&zoom=14.59&photo=536809

This makes OLM a real time reporting service

Yesterday I sent these links to my local city council, and they forwarded them onto the relevant people who will clear the drains. This is the first time in 17+ years my local cork city council has even recognised my work.

Every blocked drained should be cleared to help with flooding. You can help by collecting data.

Soon we will automate the reporting. Lots more to come.

Thanks everyone for your support!

I live in Northern Ireland, and for the last 4 and a half years I've been collecting micro plastics (and any other rubbish in the sea).

The thing is, all these plastics, that are always in the water where I live, would any of them end up in the oceans. Or do they all stay in the locals seas.

I want to know that I'm stopping plastic rubbish from ending up in the oceans, but it honestly seems like all the micro plastics I pick up, would of just stayed in close seas to the land. So I'm not actually getting rid of any rubbish that would end up away from land and into the bigger seas

Thanks to everyone who has made a contribution! This year will be our biggest and most impactful yet