Organise helpers

Organising helpers

Some important things to consider when recruiting helpers:

How and where to get helpers:

• Citizen scientists can recruit free helpers like family members, friends, or anyone interested in the clean-up.
• Researchers/organisations may need to use students or employees to do clean-ups or may need to pay interns or assistants.

How many helpers?

The number of helpers needed will depend on:

• how dirty the site is and
• how many sites you want to survey in one day.

It is better to have many helpers for your first clean-up and to take note of how long it takes to clean the site and how many helpers you used. This will give you a clearer idea of how many helpers are needed in the future.

Is it a once-off or are you doing multiple days of clean ups?

If you are doing an accumulation survey where you will be returning to the site for several consecutive days, then you will need to arrange helpers for all the days of the surveys.

In most cases, the study area will be much dirtier on the first day or “Day Zero” of the clean-up because the site may not have been cleaned for months or years. After this initial clean-up, the site will likely not be as dirty when you return the next day.

It may therefore not be necessary to use as many helpers after the initial clean-up on the first day.