Litter is the rare problem
you can fix with your hands.
Most environmental problems are too big to touch. Litter isn't. You can walk out your door, spend ten minutes, and the block is measurably better when you come back in. PICK exists to make that count for something.
The problem with picking up litter
Millions of people already do it. Almost none of it is visible. Nobody measures it, nothing coordinates it, and the person who cleans the same corner every Sunday has no way to show anyone — a neighbor, a council member, a sanitation department — that the work happened.
The apps that tried to fix this mostly ask you to photograph every single piece of trash. That's a beautiful dataset and an exhausting user experience. People quit.
What PICK does differently
PICK's bet is that the tracking should take up less attention. Start a cleanup, pocket your phone, and the app uses motion to keep a running count, paints the streets you cover, and shows you the total at the end so you can correct it before saving. The ambition is a useful record that does not pull you out of the walk.
The second bet is that the map is the motivation. Blocks turn green as they're cleaned and fade back over the following weeks, because a street cleaned in March isn't clean in June. There is always a fresh, local, finishable goal — and it's shared, so your neighborhood fills in faster when more of you are out there.
Where it came from
Pick began on ordinary cleanup walks in Brooklyn: gloves, a bag, a grabber, and the familiar feeling that the same few people were always the ones taking care of the corner.
The question was simple: what if that work had a record? What if someone else could see it, join it, and make the same block a little better next week?
The full name is Pick Global. Everyone says PICK. The idea is local wherever you are.
Where it's honestly at
PICK is an iPhone beta, built in the field. It uses phone motion to keep a running pickup count while you clean up. Before any cleanup is saved, you confirm the total.
We keep testing PICK during real walks and use that evidence to improve it. Some features will change as more people use it. That is what beta means here: the work is real, and the app is still learning how to serve it better.
iPhone only, and a beta. No Android build exists yet. Neighborhood boundaries are hand-curated for New York City, Atlanta, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, San Diego, Miami, Amsterdam, and Bristol; elsewhere PICK uses public OpenStreetMap boundaries where they exist and street-level tracking, which works anywhere, where they don't.
Where it's going
PICK will stay free for the people doing the picking. The goal is to help more neighborhoods, cleanup groups, schools, and local organizations make their work easier to see and share.
Over time, a group should be able to finish a cleanup with more than a bag photo: a map, a clear summary, and a record worth sending to the people who showed up, the people who supported it, and the people who might join next time.
No ads. Shared places are not an excuse to sell attention.
Get in touch
Ideas, bugs, partnerships, or a neighborhood you want to light up: hello@pickglobal.org. Or follow the build in public at @pickglobalhq.