Mapping Litter in Pittsburgh with a Litter Index

The Litter Index was a pilot initially meant to be expanded to a City-wide and ongoing repeated surveying, but has yet to have the opportunity to fully implement. The Index did provide very valuable insights into the unusual inverse relationship between reporting of litter issues through 311 and rates of litter actually found, and questioned the how the nature of crowdsourced information like 311 may end up providing disproportionate service to the public by underserving those with the most need and overserving those with the least.