Largest annual coastal clean-up project

The International Coastal Cleanup (ICC), overseen by Ocean Conservancy (USA), began in 1986 with a group of 2,800 volunteers led by Linda Maraniss and Kathy O’Hara in Texas, USA, who collected approximately 112 tonnes (124 US tons) of garbage in three hours from 196 km (122 mi) of coastline. The event, which has taken place every year since, has grown into one of the most extensive voluntary environmental initiatives in the world. At the 34th ICC, with activity focused around 21 September 2019, a total of 943,195 volunteers from 116 countries participated, gathering a combined 9,422,199 kg (20,772,394 lb) of trash from 39,358 km (24,456 mi) of coastline.

Of the 32,485,488 items collected at the 2019 ICC, the most common type was food wrappers and packaging (4,771,602), overtaking cigarette butts (4,211,962), which had been the worst culprit every year since the project began in 1986. In third place were plastic beverage bottles with 1,885,833 gathered during the cleanup.

Some of the more unusual items found during the 2019 ICC were a fire hydrant in Indonesia, a garden gnome in Japan, an ironing board in Venezuela and a bathtub in Jamaica.

The 35th International Coastal Cleanup did go ahead on 19 September 2020, in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it was re-imagined and encouraged volunteers to conduct private cleanups limited to people from their household.