‘Toward a cleaner, plastic-free future’: Ocean Conservancy’s annual cleanup day provides data

Ocean Conservancy calls for volunteers worldwide to join the 39th annual International Coastal Cleanup® (ICC), the world’s largest beach and waterway cleanup effort, on Saturday, September 21, 2024.

With plastic pollution at crisis levels, ICC organizers invite everyone who loves the ocean to take action by joining a cleanup in their area.

Since the first ICC in 1986, more than 18 million volunteers have joined local cleanup efforts to remove more than 385 million pounds of trash from beaches and waterways around the globe, making it the largest beach and waterway cleanup in the world. In 2023, more than 486,000 volunteers collected nearly 8 million pounds of trash globally, including nearly 2 million cigarette butts, more than 1.3 million beverage bottles and more than 850,000 bottle caps. Ocean Conservancy expects an even larger turnout in 2024.

“Over a garbage truck’s worth of plastics – much of it single-use – enters the ocean every minute, where they accumulate year after year,” said Ocean Conservancy’s Senior Director of the International Coastal Cleanup, Allison Schutes. “Ocean Conservancy is calling on volunteers worldwide to join this year’s International Coastal Cleanup and #SeatheChange. Every piece of plastic collected and recorded as part of the International Coastal Cleanup informs important research and advocacy and makes a tangible difference for our ocean and the creatures that call it home.”

This year’s ICC will feature the following flagship cleanups, in addition to others, in Alki Beach, Seattle, Wash. (Saturday, September 21) and Kingman Island, Washington, D.C. (Saturday, September 28).

Every year, more than 11 million metric tons of plastic waste are estimated to enter the ocean, impacting more than 1,300 species of marine life, including seabirds, sea turtles and marine mammals. Plastics never fully breakdown in the environment and instead, break into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastics. Microplastics are found everywhere scientists look, from the depths of the Mariana trench to mountain tops, and even our dinner plates, showing up in proteins, salt and drinking water.

“While we need policies to prevent plastic pollution from reaching our beaches in the first place, removing trash from the environment is a critical part of reducing harm to animals, sensitive habitats and human health. When these plastics break up into microplastics, they are then all but impossible to remove.” Ocean Conservancy’s Director of Plastics Policy Anja Brandon said. “It also provides critically important data on plastic pollution that we use to advocate for policies to prevent plastics from becoming pollution in the first place. In this way, every item collected and recorded is a step toward a cleaner, plastic-free future.”

Besides the direct benefit of removing trash from the environment, the data collected by ICC volunteers using the Clean Swell app or data sheets contributes to Ocean Conservancy’s marine litter database. The database is the world’s largest repository of marine debris data and is used to inform scientists, conservation groups, governments and industry leaders about ocean trash to fuel plastic pollution prevention and advocacy efforts. ICC data has been instrumental in spurring policy change from being used to promote California’s SB 54, the Florida balloon release ban, the Farewell to Foam Ac and advocate for source reduction in the upcoming plastics treaty.

Ocean Conservancy works to protect the ocean from today’s greatest global challenges. Together with partners, evidence-based solutions for a healthy ocean and the wildlife and communities that depend on it are created.