Throughout 2019, the Alliance for the Great Lakes hosted community Adopt-a-Beach cleanups, and this year had volunteers cleaning up trash on all five Great Lakes, in all eight Great Lakes states.
Plastic was the No. 1 type of litter gathered during the 1,084 beach cleanups that took place this spring, summer and fall, accounting for 90% of all litter, according to the organization. Small plastic items have been shown to be harmful to the environment; animals ingest them and small plastic pieces have even been found in drinking water.
Other items collected were cigarettes, foam pieces, plastic bottle caps, food wrappers, straws, glass pieces and more.
In total, there were 53,843 pounds of garbage collected by 21,146 volunteers in 2019. To learn more about this year’s cleanups, visit greatlakes.org/2019/11/adopt-a-beach-2019-results.
