Nearly 800,000 volunteers worldwide removed more than 20 million pieces of trash in the 2017 International Coastal Cleanup
According to the Ocean Conservancy’s 2018 International Coastal Cleanup Report released last June, nearly 800,000 volunteers in 107 countries came together and removed more than 20 million pieces of trash from beaches and waterways. That’s 20 million fewer potential impacts on birds, whales, turtles and other marine wildlife. We picked up 9,285,600 kilograms of trash over 30,472 kilometers of coastlines, rivers and underwater areas. Ocean Conservancy’s Ocean Trash Index is the world's largest item-by-item, location-by-location database of trash found in near-shore environments. Last year, we’ve collected enough plastic beverage bottles to fill over 5 standard swimming pools, enough rope to weave a beach towel that is 28km long, enough straws to reach the height of over 10,000 palm trees, enough cigarette butts to line the distance of 5 marathons and enough plastic bags to sew 5,461 sails. Some of the weird items found in the September 2017 Cleanup include: a satellite disc,...