Alabama Coastal Cleanup Calls for Volunteers Across 33 Zones

If you fish the coast, run a boat, hunt the marsh, or just like seeing clean water, this is the kind of work that backs up the talk.

The 39th Annual Alabama Coastal Cleanup is set for Saturday, September 19, 2026, from 8 a.m. to noon in Baldwin, Mobile, and Escambia counties. Volunteers are needed in all 33 cleanup zones, with supplies like trash grabbers, bags, recycling bags, and gloves provided by zone coordinators.

This is Alabama’s largest single-day volunteer cleanup event and part of the International Coastal Cleanup. Since 1987, more than 115,000 volunteers have taken part in Alabama’s effort and removed 900 tons of marine debris from beaches, roadways, bayous, backwaters, and other coastal areas.

That matters. Trash in coastal habitat is not just ugly. It ends up around fish, birds, turtles, marsh grass, boat ramps, beaches, and the same water people depend on for recreation and work. The cleanup also records debris data, which helps track what is showing up and where the problems are coming from.

There is nothing complicated about this one. Show up, put in a morning, and leave the place better than you found it. Conservation is not always a lawsuit, a commission meeting, or a giant policy fight. Sometimes it is a pair of gloves, a trash bag, and people who still believe public water is worth taking care of.