Bucket Brigade Hits the Beach

Thousands of Hardy All-Weather Friends Swept Beaches

Over 5,000 volunteers gathered on Saturday, April 13, 2019 from 9:00am – 12:30pm at over 60 New Jersey beaches and waterways to clean harmful debris at Clean Ocean Action’s (COA) 34th Annual Spring Beach Sweeps. Rain and cloudy morning skies didn’t deter enthusiastic volunteers from spending the morning cleaning, collecting and tabulating debris that they removed from shorelines from Bergen to Cape May Counties.

Although garbage bags were provided at each Beach Sweep site, this year we urged citizens to further eliminate plastic by bringing their own bucket (BYOB) and the response was incredible.

Beach Sweeps help reduce water pollution from beaches to stop debris from entering waterways where they become harmful and even lethal to aquatic life. The data from the Beach Sweeps turns a one-day event into a legacy of information to improve public awareness, change wasteful habits, enforce litter laws and improve policies to reduce sources of marine debris. Marine debris is a human caused, human solved issue.

Visit CleanOceanAction.org to view past years’ Annual Beach Sweeps Reports to learn more about non-point source pollution.