Greenpoint has a litter problem but this interactive map is here to help

Greenpoint has 73,000 residents but only 100 trash bins and that’s a problem, says Curb Your Litter: Greenpoint.

So they decided to do something about it. The group built an interactive map that lets users explore open government data about trash bins, recycling bins and litter, most of which is culled from 311. The map also lets you upload photos of litter you see, and drag and drop trash bins to where you think they would be well-placed.
See the map
Curb Your Litter will then analyze the data and begin a conversation with the city about improving the situation. They also have some money of their own and will just be purchasing bins themselves, based on the map.

The effort comes from Caroline Bauer and Alan Minor, the director and community outreach coordinator, respectively, of Curb Your Litter: Greenpoint.
“As urban planners, we agreed that the only way to do something about it was to build tools for the community to use to first make litter visible, and then second, come together to take responsibility for maintaining our streets and sidewalks,” explained Bauer. “Thanks to a grant from the Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund, we were able to partner with the Greenpoint Chamber of Commerce to roll out a three-part project to tackle our neighborhood’s litter problem with analysis, education and infrastructure upgrades.”
The map was made, as so many useful community maps seem to be these days, with technology from Bushwick-based CartoDB. CartoDB allows people without technical training to create interactive and great-looking maps with data sets. Part of the startup’s mission is to improve cities.
Curb Your Litter presented their map at the NYC BigApps challenge and made it into the semifinals. They’ll find out next week what their result is.
In the meantime, check out the map, suggest a trash can, upload some garbage pics and let’s get Greenpoint looking good.