Roll up your sleeves! Volunteers needed for Beach Sweeps tradition

⚫ Event comes back next month

⚫ Volunteers needed

⚫ 80+ locations available

Shore lovers, it’s time to give back to the places that make New Jersey so unique.

Clean Ocean Action’s Beach Sweeps is back, which dates back to 1985! Volunteers of all ages are needed to cover over 80 locations — just bring gloves and a bucket.

“We really have to stop all this beach litter. We have to stop the littering that’s happening, which is very harmful to marine life, as we know,” COA Executive Director Cindy Zipf said in our past coverage.

The tradition returns Oct. 19 from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. rain or shine. Applications are required and are open to be a volunteer, Junior Beach Captain or a Beach Sweeps Captain.

Locations are conveniently located in nine counties; the full list can be found here.

Over eight million pieces of trash have been removed from our beaches since 1985, according to Clean Ocean Action data. Over 150,000 volunteers have given their time.

2023 data:

• Just shy of 80% of debris collected was plastic
• Most common plastic things picked up: bags, candy wrappers, food
• Foam plastic came in second place
• 2023 spring and fall sweeps collected over 175,000 items

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