Unsure if this is the right board but I thought /sci/ might have some biologists or enviromental study people to help give some advice. A canal runs through my town and is not in great condition due to water quality issues and lots of litter. It's astounding how abruptly the condition improves as it meets the boundary of the neighbouring town. I want to make it a cleaner place not just for wildlife but also for the people that live here and in order to do that I need to research the causes of the problems and find the solutions. I am intending to make a report on the litter issues and ecology of my town to hopefully get the council to do something. My scientific knowledge is mainly from highschool biology and a few years of undergraduate chemistry, so I know about the scientific method and how to do some biological surverys but it's been a while.

>Litter:
The vast majority of litter is comprised of beer cans and rings (very dangerous for birds) and plastic bags. A large supermarket and local high street both back on to the canal so it's very likely they're the sources of the litter. But how can I find out which one is the exact source? What research methods could I use? I know in big scale projects researchers attach tags to litter to track where it ends up but is there something like that I could do on a smaller scale with the beer cans?

>Water quality:
Right now the water is kind of transparent but there's not a whole lot living in it apart from some submerged plants and small fish and lots of algae. Again the quality seems to improve as the canal passes through the other town. What is a good amateur method to test the water quality without expensive kits? Is this even useful?

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