Read about the the data we collected in 2024 in our new infographic!
What is Save the Sound’s Cleanup program?
We all deserve clean spaces every day. Recognizing this, we first expanded the International Coastal Cleanup Day in Connecticut into a weekend, then a month, then a full year. With support from cleanup captains, volunteers, and sponsors, our CT Cleanup is now nearly year-round—so in 2024, we took on the next frontier: New York! We’re proud to bring people together in an expanded effort toward a trash-free Long Island Sound region.
In the spring, we host special public events around Earth Day and corporate cleanups, reserved for sponsor companies and their employees as team-building events. In the fall, we host our community-based cleanups open to all. There’s a cleanup for everyone and there’s always trash to pick up!
Save the Sound has hosted cleanups as the official Connecticut coordinator for Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup for over 20 years. The global event, which occurs on International Coastal Cleanup Day every mid-September, has motivated over 11.5 million people around the world to pick up over 210 million pounds of trash from nearly 390,000 miles of shoreline.
Save the Sound’s CT Cleanup is a state-wide effort hosted by Cleanup Captains, Connecticut residents passionate about keeping our parks, rivers, and beaches clean. Save the Sound supports each Cleanup Captain through event planning, training, and volunteer recruitment. We also provide all of the materials you need to clean up a natural space of your choice.
What about cleanups in New York?
We care about the health of the entire Long Island Sound watershed, and that means cleaning up parks, rivers, and beaches in New York too!
While Save the Sound is the officially-recognized coordinator for the International Coastal Cleanup in Connecticut, the American Littoral Society is the host for New York. Visit the American Littoral Society’s cleanup webpage to learn more.
There’s no shortage of opportunities to help keep our region trash free!
How does trash affect wildlife?
Turtles, fish, birds, and other wildlife you love seeing throughout the Long Island Sound region can become entangled in fishing line, nets, and six-pack rings. They mistake trash like Styrofoam, plastics, and cigarette butts for food, which can poison their bodies with toxins and lead to starvation. All of these can kill wildlife, and all of it is avoidable.
How does litter affect our economy?
Not only does marine debris threaten the Sound’s fragile ecosystem, it weakens local economies by sapping dollars from the tourism and seafood industries. Long Island Sound contributes tens of billions of dollars to the regional economy each year, but toxic seafood, polluted rivers, and trash-covered beaches threaten our livelihoods as well as the wildlife that calls our region home.
Why collect data on trash?
At each cleanup event, we keep track of the trash we pick up. By using the Clean Swell app or tallying trash type and number on paper worksheets, our volunteers help us determine the most common and strangest types of trash we collect. The data shows changes in pollution trends over time and the larger impact volunteers are making across the globe. We share this data with Ocean Conservancy, too, for their annual international trash report.
In 2023, we summarized six years of trash data in our first ever Connecticut Cleanup Report, and the numbers were shocking! Cigarette butts, food wrappers, and small plastic pieces have been the top three most common trash types for the past eight years. Styrofoam and balloons as persistent trash types on the ground and in the Sound. On average, Save the Sound volunteers collect over 100 pieces of Styrofoam trash at each cleanup and over 400 Mylar or rubber balloons each year.
We use these trends to advocate for policy change in New York and Connecticut that stops trash at its source.
You Can Help
In the past eight years alone, our volunteers have picked up over half a million pieces of trash from beaches, parks, and rivers, protecting countless creatures and communities. Help us continue this effort to stop trash in its tracks.
Everyone is welcome to volunteer! The 2025 cleanup season kicks off April 26 with Earth Day cleanups in New York and Connecticut—get details here. Or, sign up to get alerts about future cleanups.
Connecticut residents can be an even bigger part of the effort by becoming a Cleanup Captain to host your own event during the CT Cleanup season, each August and October. Check out the Cleanup Captain Manual to learn what’s involved.
Sponsor the CT Cleanup program
In addition to the large public cleanup effort, Save the Sound partners with corporations to make an impact. We ask corporate partners to support our cleanup program with financial contributions or in-kind gifts of essential supplies. In return, we highlight you as heroes in the fight against pollution in our digital communications and cleanup swag!
To coordinate a company cleanup for your organization or make a supportive contribution please e-mail our Cleanup Coordinator, Annalisa Paltauf, at apaltauf@savethesound.org.