This data resource contains information on anthropogenic litter from the Portoviejo River, in Ecuador, collected between years 2021 and 2022. This work is part of the Natural Environment Research Council project “Reducing the impacts of plastic waste in the Eastern Pacific Ocean” (NE/V005448/1). The purpose of collecting this dataset was to obtain consistent observational data of solid waste contamination in a South American river system using a newly developed clean-up technology called the Azure System. The dataset contains information of weight (in kilograms) of different categories of anthropogenic litter collected using the Azure System, a floating barrier designed as a litter extraction tool for rivers. The system was developed by Ichthion Limited (https://ichthion.com/), who were also responsible for data collection on site. The barrier was installed at the city of Portoviejo, where litter was collected from February 2021 until December 2022 and quantities were reported weekly for each month. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/e78e1cef-e30b-4313-8733-c03e1a7b7b2f