This coming weekend, April 21-23 is Adopt-a-Beach spring kickoff for 2023. Adopt-a-Beach is a program of the Alliance for the Great Lakes. If you live in the Great Lakes region, the Alliance can help you find a beach clean-up – or organize one! 

At a beach clean-up organized in coordination with the Alliance, there is a leader who helps distribute materials (e.g. gloves, buckets) and gives an overview of the data collection aspect of the clean-up. Adopt-a-Beach volunteers have been collecting data during beach clean-ups since 2003. To do this, someone is tasked with keeping track of what trash is being pick-up, and at the end of the event, the weight of it. 

The data has shown a number of things: Volunteers are removing close to 15 tons of trash from beaches each year. About 85% of this trash is made entirely or partially of plastic. 25% of litter picked up is food-related – like plastic cups, utensils and takeout containers. Much of the plastic collected are small pieces that have already broken down or off of a larger piece. These tiny pieces matter! During a cleanup it’s easy to realize that they are actually the most likely trash to be eaten by animals in and around the lakes when they mistake the microplastics for pieces of food.

Things that I love about beach clean-ups: on-boarding is quick, they are hands-on, physical activities outdoors, and they can be a great group or solo activity. 

I’ve participated in three different beach clean-ups thus far and each one was rewarding and satisfying in its own way. In July 2022 I was at Euclid Beach on Lake Erie at 7 AM on a Saturday morning on my own for a beach clean-up organized by the Cleveland Metroparks. Everything about the outing was a joy: the water was beautiful, the beach was quiet and there were few people out when I got started. By 8:30 when the clean-up ended, there were people walking and biking, a number of whom stopped to thank me for my efforts. I drove home with the windows open listening to a good podcast and was home in time for breakfast with my family.