Working together for plastic-free national parks

National parks are undeniably popular places in the United States, with more than 325 million visitors per year. While wildlife and habitats are protected in many ways, the damage of plastic pollution is felt even in these most beautiful places. Luckily, there are cleanup programs like Surfrider’s Beach Cleanups that can help.

I recently volunteered at the Yosemite Climbing Association’s Facelift event, where I picked up trash (spoiler alert: mostly plastic) with my favorite people at one of my favorite places. For four days, 1,215 volunteers hiked throughout Yosemite, completing 7,780 volunteer hours and ingesting a total of 13,112 pounds!

As much as I was happy to make a small contribution to cleaning up Yosemite, there are broader and more effective ways to address this problem, from collecting solid data to implementing effective policy changes that stop plastic pollution at the source fight.

Picking up trash absolutely makes a difference, especially for wildlife who can mistake plastic for food and ingest it. Collecting plastic waste also means that it does not break down further into microplastics. However, going a step further and logging data provides important information that can impact policy and also helps hold companies accountable for the waste they create. That’s exactly what the 5 Gyres TrashBlitz project did, collecting information on over 8,000 pieces of trash.

By better understanding the materials, items and brands of the most common waste, we can find solutions that address these issues. Read 5 Gyres’ 2023 TrashBlitz report on plastic-free parks here.

Photo credit: Alison Waliszewski, 5 Gyres

Let’s work together on plastic-free national parks

I I hope that my family and friends don’t pick up trash in the coming years because there isn’t any to be found. But in the meantime, we can work together towards plastic-free national parks and beyond! Here are a few ideas:

• Take part in a Surfrider Beach Cleanup! Beach Cleanups provide a fun and easy way to volunteer and support our mission to protect our ocean, waves and beaches for all people. Read more about our 2023 beach cleanup report here.
• Do a solo beach cleanup! Can’t take part in a beach clean-up? You can make a difference by picking up the trash and recording the data where you are.
• Be a friend of the ocean. Join Surfrider volunteers and activists around the world as we bring together 1 million Friends of the Ocean to advocate for policies that protect our oceans, waves and beaches for future generations.