Do-It-Yourself Cleanup Tool Kit

Want to start your own cleanup? Get started here.

Every year during Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup™, hundreds of thousands of volunteers comb lakes, rivers and beaches around the world for trash. Over the course of nearly three decades, more than 9 million volunteers have collected nearly 164 million pounds of trash.

But our ocean needs help more than once a year, and you can take a lead role on the front line of one of the world’s most preventable problems by doing your own beach or waterway cleanup. Next time you’re headed out to the beach or a nearby park, take along a trash bag and an Ocean Conservancy Data Form to collect and document the debris you find.

Feeling more ambitious? Recruit friends and family to join you in a larger cleanup. Explain to them that no matter where you live—whether on the coast or thousands of miles away—all waterways lead to the ocean. But if we take action and work together, we can improve the ocean’s health and make trash free seas a reality.

Here’s everything you’ll need to plan your own cleanup:

• Before the Cleanup
• During the Cleanup
• After the Cleanup