Adopt-a-Beach

Adopt-a-Beach volunteers are on the front lines of keeping litter, most of it plastic, out of the Great Lakes. And they collect valuable data on what they find for researchers to use worldwide.

Visit our Adopt-a-Beach page to see how you can get involved with Adopt-a-Beach. Read the latest news about Adopt-a-Beach cleanups below.

Blog

June 26, 2023

Adopt-a-Beach Launches 20th Year of Data Collection

Adopt-a-Beach volunteers launched the 2023 Adopt-a-Beach season with hundreds of cleanups on Great Lakes beaches, harbors, bluffs, and trails. By June 26, volunteers had removed more than 191,000 pieces of […]

Blog

April 21, 2023

20 Years of Adopt-a-Beach Data Collection: What Have We Learned?

Adopt-a-Beach volunteers are on the front lines of keeping litter off our beaches and out of the Great Lakes. But did you know that these volunteers are also citizen scientists? […]

Blog

November 14, 2022

Adopt-a-Beach 2022: Year-End Results

Every November, the weather turns cooler, the rush of beach cleanups begins to slow, and we take the time to compile our annual Adopt-a-Beach™ results. The Alliance for the Great […]

Blog

September 29, 2022

Adopt-a-Beach Reaches a Milestone

Last year marked the 30th anniversary of the Alliance for the Great Lakes’ Adopt-a-Beach program. As we dug into the data we’d collected, we realized the program was approaching a […]

Podcast

September 27, 2022

Juliann Krupa: September Adopt a Beach Cleanup & Half a Million Pounds Goal

Juliann Krupa is the Volunteer Engagement Manager at the Alliance for the Great Lakes. In this role, Juliann utilizes her passion for aquatic science and conservation to oversee over 15,000 Adopt-a-Beach […]

BLOG

August 19, 2022

To the Beach: Adopt-a-Beach Cleanup Road Trip Recap 

This summer Juliann Krupa, Volunteer Engagement Manager, and Oliva Reda, Volunteer Engagement Coordinator, set out to clean beaches and meet volunteers around the Great Lakes region. They cleaned up trash, […]

Blog

May 16, 2022

Adopt-a-Beach 2022: Off to a Strong Start

Spring may have only just decided to arrive, but Adopt-a-Beach volunteers are already turning out in force. Nearly 1,000 volunteers have collected over 5,000 pounds of litter. And the numbers […]

Blog

April 22, 2022

Learning Outside the Classroom: Volunteer Spotlight

Our Adopt-a-Beach program has grown tremendously over the past 30 years. That’s due to community members of all ages coming together to keep our beaches and shorelines clean. As we […]

Podcast

April 13, 2022

Juliann Krupa Spring Kick Off

Juliann Krupa is the Volunteer Engagement Manager at the Alliance for the Great Lakes. In this role, Juliann utilizes her passion for aquatic science and conservation to oversee over 15,000 Adopt-a-Beach […]

Blog

November 16, 2021

Over 200,000 Volunteers and 8,282,807 Pieces of Litter

2021 marked the 30th anniversary of the Alliance for the Great Lakes’ Adopt-a-Beach program. This year alone, volunteers hosted beach cleanups on all 5 Great Lakes and in all 8 […]