International Coastal Cleanup Day – September 17

Coastal Cleanup Day

Hopefully, your summer has been full of trips to some beautiful beaches. The weather is some parts of the country will be warm enough to swimin the ocean for at least another month, so there’s still time left to squeeze in one more trip! As summer winds down, though, it’s time to start thinking about how you can give back to a beach or coastline near you. Let’s clean up our beaches and oceans!

California Coastal Cleanup Day is taking place on Saturday, September 17. In 2010, over 82,000 volunteers removed 1.2 million pounds of trash and recyclables from California’s lakes, beaches and waterways – that’s an amazing effort! Let’s see if we can beat that record this year. California Coastal Cleanup Day is part of the larger International Coastal Cleanup Day that takes place ever year on the third Saturday in September. According to Ocean Conservancy, in 2010, 7.4 million pounds of trash were removed from our world’s waterways by volunteers. Incredible!

This goes to show you that yes, you can make a difference! Grab a group of friends and sign up for a cleanup in your area, or join one that’s already been organized.

Don’t worry if you don’t live near a big body of water, you can still help! You can pick up trash around small lakes and streams, or work inland — so much of our trash in inland areas makes its way into lakes and streams via gutters — clean up the trash at the source before it has a chance to reach our oceans. Or, get involved in an educational campaign. There are so many things you can do to help.

Some of the statistics from these cleanup efforts are really mind blowing, and hopefully they’ll inspire you to get involved. For example, last year, volunteers all over the worlds picked up over one million plastic bottles — in one day. Let’s get out there and clean up our waters!

New York Coastal Cleanup

California Coastal Cleanup

Florida Coastal Cleanup

Washington Coastal Cleanup

Mississippi Coastal Cleanup

Yucky Beach Trash

Photos: Mikebaird, mesaba

Related Posts

Comments are closed.