If your school, club, team, or company is interested in getting outdoors and helping the local community, a beach cleanup is a great way to get involved!

We can meet you at the beach and lead the cleanup, or you can conduct the cleanup on your own and contribute to our long-term data set. Not only will the beach cleanup help wildlife and keep the beach safer for humans, but the information you record will help us learn about trends in marine pollution and help find solutions.

What We Provide:

All cleanup supplies, except for gloves.
A Blue Ocean Society representative to meet you at the beach, provide guidance, clean the beach with you, and take care of trash removal afterward.
A short tutorial to kick off the cleanup regarding how you will be collecting data during the cleanup, information about local marine debris issues, and safety guidance.

What You Bring:

Gloves. Please bring reusable gloves, such as gardening gloves, thin winter gloves, or other work gloves. We aim to avoid plastic disposable gloves to limit our contribution to pollution from single-use plastic products.
Snacks, drinks, sunscreen, bug spray, and other personal care items, so you are comfortable throughout the cleanup. We encourage folks to limit their consumption of products that use single-use plastic where feasible. We suggest bringing water and food in reusable containers.
We suggest participants dress in layers and wear sturdy, closed-toed shoes for safety. Note that temperatures can often be 10-15 degrees cooler at the beach than inland.

Requirements

Group Size. We require at least 10 participants in a group to lead a cleanup for you. If your group has less than ten people, you are welcome to use our beach cleanup guide to lead the cleanup on your own and/or borrow a beach cleanup kit, which can be picked up at a scheduled time from our office in Portsmouth or from the Blue Ocean Discovery Center at Hampton Beach (only open in summer). We ask that groups of more than 25 cleanup participants consider donating to offset the resources and staff required to coordinate a large cleanup.

Cleanup Timeframe. All cleanups led by Blue Ocean Society are scheduled for a 2-hour period. Over the years, we have found this is the ideal timeframe so that no one leaves too tired, dehydrated, or sore. We do not hold summer cleanups on weekends due to parking challenges.

Debris Monitoring & Data Collection

We collect data at all Blue Ocean Society beach cleanups, which contributes to our long-term marine debris monitoring and helps us advocate for change in the seacoast community.

Check out the impact of our beach cleanups last year in our Marine Debris Results 2024 Pamphlet.

Beach Cleanup Booking Form

Please fill out the form below to schedule a beach cleanup at least two weeks before your preferred date to ensure staff availability.

We’ll get back to you to confirm your cleanup details. Please note that we may not always be able to accommodate your preferred beach due to the tide schedule and our existing cleanup calendar.

Thank You

Thank you to the following businesses and other groups that have conducted cleanups in the past years, many of which have donated to support our cleanup efforts.

Thanks also to the New Hampshire Coastal Program for their continued support!