Design a Litter Picking Device
In partnership with Canal & River Trust, we invite you to take on an exciting engineering and environmental challenge!
We need your creativity to design a sustainable, efficient, and innovative litter picking device to help clean up our canals and rivers. Your design will play a key role in protecting wildlife, improving water quality and making our canals and rivers a better place for everyone to enjoy.
The Problem
Every year, millions of pieces of plastic end up in and around canals, with a significant amount being carried out into oceans, negatively impacting the environment on a global scale.
Plastic rubbish damages vital waterside habitats, such as grassland, hedgerows, banks and reedbeds, destroys precious inland aquatic ecosystems and habitats, impacts our water quality, and endangers species such as aquatic birds, water voles and otters.
Traditional clean-up methods can be slow, expensive, or inefficient.
Our Challenge to Students:
Key Design Considerations
Functionality:
- How will the vessel collect litter? (e.g., claws, nets, conveyor belts).
- How will the collected litter be stored and removed from the boat/vessel?
- Can it operate in hard-to-reach areas?
Sustainability:
- Use renewable energy sources (e.g., solar panels, wind, or pedal power).
- Minimise pollution and carbon footprint.
Safety and Accessibility:
- Ensure it’s safe for operators and canal wildlife.
- Design it to be user-friendly and easy to maintain.
Innovation:
- Think outside the box! How can your design improve efficiency and make litter collection more effective?
Submission Requirements
- A 2D or 3D design: This can be hand-drawn, digitally created, or modelled with materials like cardboard or LEGO.
- A short description: Explain how your design works, why it’s sustainable, and how it will solve the litter problem.
- Optional extras: Include a creative name for your device and share ideas for branding or how it could raise awareness about littering.
Let’s Make a Difference Together!
Start brainstorming ideas by exploring your local canals, researching existing litter picking technologies, and considering innovative ways to keep our canals and rivers clean and green.
How to Enter the Competition
- Download the Resources – Access all necessary materials below to find out more information about the competition:
- Introduce the Challenge – Use the PowerPoint and guide to present the competition details to your class.
- Form Teams – Ask students to create teams of at least five members.
- Complete the Entry Form – Ensure students understand the key considerations for their device and the judging criteria before filling out the form.
- Select Entries – Teachers can choose which entries to submit—there is no limit to the number of submissions.
- Submit Your Entry – Save the completed entry form as a PDF or scan it , then upload it via the competition website by 5pm on 30 May 2025.
General Guidance:
- Submit entries from a computer rather than a mobile device for optimal performance.
- For multiple entries, consider compressing them into a ZIP file or submitting in batches of up to 20 entries each.
- Ensure the total size of your upload does not exceed 120 MB.
- Be patient during the uploading process, especially for large files or multiple submissions. Please do not close your browser window until you are redirected to the next screen.
Opting into the Online Gallery
If you wish to have your pupils’ entries displayed in our online gallery as well as Canal & River Trust website, please select the appropriate tick box. If not, simply leave it unchecked.
Thank you for your participation and best of luck to all participants!
Clean Canals Challenge Key Stage 3 and 4
Submit your competition entries for the KS3&4 Clean Canals Challenge Competition