Trash Management Questions Workshop
San Francisco Estuary Institute
November 15, 2019, 9am - 5pm
Event Summary
On November 15, 2019, the State Water Resources Control Board’s Office of Information Management and Analysis held the second annual Trash Data Dive at the San Francisco Estuary Institute, located in Richmond, California. The 2019 Trash Data Dive – a trash management questions workshop – was convened as an invite-only event where attendees built on the Inaugural California Trash Data Dive to compile, refine and prioritize management questions surrounding the nexus of trash and the following project areas:
- Data Models
- Homelessness
- Macro/micro Plastics
- Storytelling
- Tobacco
The main goals for the 2019 Trash Data Dive were to develop and prioritize said management questions and establish a rough plan for 2020 Trash focused Datathon or Hackathon style events. Datathons tend to involve more discussion about the question(s) at hand and the data available to answer them; questions may need to be refined and data found before participants can work on answering the questions with data. At Hackathons, participants use available data to build prototypes of analyses, visualizations, or interactive tools that answer refined questions.
If you were not able to make the 2019 Trash Data Dive but would like to give us your perspective, or participate in future California State Water Board Trash related events, please fill out our Trash Stakeholder Questions Survey!
The 2019 Trash Data Dive was attended by 37 trash subject matter experts from across California. Representatives from State and Regional Water Boards gathered together with those from other state agencies and municipalities (Agency), non-governmental organizations (NGO), private consultants (Private), and academic institutions (Academia) (see Appendix I for a full list of participants).
Project Facilitators
Facilitators were preselected based on their expertise for their respective project area. Each facilitator was asked to guide discussions and help participants efficiently reach specific goals throughout the day.
Project Facilitators and their respective affiliations include:
- Data Models: Win Cowger (University of California, Riverside)
- Homelessness: Melissa Gunter (San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board)
- Macro/micro Plastics: Shelly Walther (California Water Quality Monitoring Council Member representing publicly owned treatment works & the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County)
- Storytelling: Meredith Lee (West Big Data Innovation Hub & University of California, Berkeley)
- Tobacco: April Roeseler (California Department of Public Health, Tobacco Control Program)
Steering Committee
Members of the 2019 Trash Hackathon Steering Committee were selected because they have and continue to be champions of effectively using data to help solve problems associated with trash. The role of the Steering Committee was to help the State Water Resources Control Board’s Office of Information Management and Analysis develop and plan for the 2019 Trash Data Dive.
Steering Committee members and their respective affiliations and sectors include:
- Win Cowger (University of California, Riverside)
- Christine Flowers (Keep America Beautiful)
- Greg Gearheart (State Water Resources Control Board)
- Tony Hale (San Francisco Estuary Institute)
- Anna Holder (State Water Resources Control Board)
- Meredith Lee (West Big Data Innovation Hub & University of California, Berkeley)
- Sherry Lippiatt (NOAA Marine Debris Program)
- Nick Martorano (California Water Quality Monitoring Council)
- Shelly Moore (Southern California Coastal Water Research Project)
- April Roeseler (California Department of Public Health, Tobacco Control Program)
- Kate Wing (Kate Wing Consulting)
Question Sorting Matrix
Workshop Process
Participants began at their primary project are of interest to discuss and compile management questions. Participants then randomly rotated though the remaining topic areas to provide input on questions in other project areas. This allowed participants to learn about other trash related project areas as well as meet and collaborate with individuals they may not get to collaborate with otherwise. This also encouraged participants to listen to and provide perspectives that in many cases are lost or not daylit until much later under traditional workshop structures.
Once meeting participants refined and compiled management questions for each trash nexus project area, they ranked them by:
- Dataset availability: To what extent are data available to answer the question(s)?
- Impact: How much impact will we get from answering the question(s)?
- Urgency: How urgently do we need to answer these question(s)?
Once ranked, questions were sorted by hackability and priority using a sorting matrix. Finally, participants voted for their top four question groups in each project area to help prioritize questions for 2020 Trash focused Datathon or Hackathon events.
Outcomes
Below are the questions and recommended next steps for each project area. Questions are ordered in relative order of priority and prioritization for 2020 Trash focused Datathon or Hackathon events.
Please visit the State Water Resources Control Board Data Center’s Trash Datathon Resources GitHub Page for details on other State Water Board resources about available trash datasets, projects to improve trash data collection methods and standards, and analytical tools to summarize trash-related data and support assessment of the causes and impacts of trash pollution.
Sorting matrices from the Data Models and Homelessness groups
Sorting matrix from the Microplastics group
Sorting matrix and brainstorming notes from the Storytelling group
Tobacco group discussion and sorting matrix
2020 Trash Events
The State Water Board’s Office of Information Management and Analysis plans to host the following events in 2020, which will focus on addressing some of the questions above. Mark your calendars for the following events:
- February 28, 2020, Sacramento
- June 28-29, 2020, Sacramento
- Oct – Nov 2020, Specific date(s) and Location TBD
More details on specific topics and event logistics coming soon!
If you are interested in hosting, collaborating with the State Water Boards, or participating in an event that will tackle some of these questions, please let us know by filling out our Trash Stakeholder Questions Survey!
