Nothing changes how you order lunch like spending two hours picking its packaging out of the seaweed. Every organisation below runs cleanups that anyone can join, publishes what it finds, and feeds the data into the counts that the practices on this site are built on.
United States: Surfrider Foundation chapters
Surfrider's chapters run cleanups year-round and log them through a single site, where you can find the next one near you and see the totals. In 2026 the foundation reported 44,645 volunteers at 1,368 cleanups across the United States and Europe. Its 2025 report lists what was found, and data sheets are available in English and Spanish for anyone who wants to run their own.
United States: Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup
The largest coordinated event, each September, with local sites across the country. Between events, the Clean Swell app lets you log a solo cleanup into the same database.
Los Angeles: Heal the Bay
A Southern California nonprofit that runs the Beach Report Card and Los Angeles's Coastal Cleanup Day, which drew 5,827 volunteers in 2026. It has campaigned for the city's polystyrene ban and for reusables in dine-in service, and writes regularly about plastic in the region.
Canada: Ocean Wise Shoreline Cleanup
Canada's largest ocean conservation organisation has run the Shoreline Cleanup for thirty years, anywhere a shoreline exists, and publishes a "Dirty Dozen" of the items found most.
Australia: Take 3 for the Sea
Built around a single habit: take three pieces of rubbish with you when you leave the beach. The charity also runs Ocean Classroom education programmes and publishes an annual review.