International Coastal Cleanup

On September 21st, CHNEP volunteers joined individuals around the world to participate in the International Coastal Cleanup. From the heartland to the coasts of almost every single continent, the impact of volunteers was absolutely enormous. Last year, more

than one million #TeamOcean volunteers removed approximately 23 million pounds of trash from coastlines and waterways around the world in just one day. Thank you again to all those who participated and showed your support for trash free seas. The items CHNEP volunteers collected during this clean up were used to build an educational interactive Marine Debris sculpture at the CHNEP Nature Festival.

CHNEP also gives a special shout out to Keep Charlotte Beautiful for providing our cleanup supplies and Charlotte Harbor Environmental center for partnering with us in this event.

This year’s CHNEP International Coastal Cleanup event took place as part of National Estuaries week, an annual celebration and campaign to increase public awareness of estuaries and to encourage people to become involved in the protection of these important natural resources. We were excited to see so many dedicated volunteers caring about estuaries in their area. Estuaries are places where the river meets the sea, and are important nurseries for many species of fish, as well as cultural and economic drivers for many coastal communities.