Save the Waves targets threats to water

A conservation organization is now using the crowdsourcing app Save the Waves to help take on threats to the waters it’s aiming to protect.

Georgian Bay Forever, a Toronto-based charity helping restore, conserve, and protect the the bay’s aquatic ecosystem, is encouraging citizens to use the Save the Waves app, now available for Apple and Android.

The app you to take photos of garbage, plastic pollution or other threats (such as erosion, degraded infrastructure or algae blooms) on beaches and coastlines, geotag the location, and submit this information directly to the group.

“Every time you submit a possible environmental threat on Georgian Bay through the app, it gets sent to us so that we can either alert the proper authorities, other environmental groups, or take care of it ourselves whenever possible,” Georgian Bay Forever Development Director Amber Gordon said.

The app is part of the Critical Catch program, which provides waste receptacles for anglers. It also includes public education, including helping foster youth conservation skills in a classroom effort with a local hatchery, Gordon said. More receptacles, which are now located throughout the town of Collingwood. They will be installed in other locations this year.