It's well known that our oceans - and consequently our beaches - are dangerously full of trash. Just take a walk along any stretch of coastline and you can't fail to see rubbish of all types - both domestic and commercial.

We aren't the first organisation to promote cleaning up of our beaches (and other leisure areas for that matter) and hopefully we won't be the last. Only when the majority of people get the message that leaving waste behind or throwing it away irresponsibly will matters improve.

We want to encourage people to have some fun whilst picking up rubbish and we have created an app which gives users targets to achieve awards. Based on the number of collections you make you can achive a higher ranking on the Clean Beach app. Our aim is to get responsibly minded companies to sponsor different levels of achievement with rewards. This may take some time to get lots of sponsors on board but by downloading the app you are helping by showing that it is worth their while to join us.

Your records are kept private and will not be shared with anyone. If you qualify for a reward from a sponsor company we will contact you and arrange for the reward to be donated.

Records of your collections will be anonymous but we intend to show local governments the amount of waste that has been collected from their local area to help persuade them to invest more in recycling and clean up operations.

The app is called Clean Beach and has a seaside theme but it can be used anywhere. Feel free to use it to collect discarded items from Parks, Woodland, Mountains - wherever! Your results will still register.

We are interested to find out how much "Branded" rubbish is collected. We intend to give this information to local authorities so they can see how much rubbish is from a local take away (for example), and ask the take away to do more to encourage their customers to dispose of rubbish responsibly.

We hope you enjoy the app and please look out for upgrades in the coming months. We're only at the beginning!