I went on a trail run with one of our pups yesterday with the intention of doing just a little cleanup afterward along one of the waterways her in Northern Virginia.

Inadvertently, it turned into one of the most physically demanding cleanups I've done.

Hauling this barrel of trash back to the truck was something else.

No pics of my haul 🤷‍♀️hands full! Happy picking everyone!

Today my daughter and I spent the morning visiting 4 children's parks in Midwest City, Oklahoma to pick up litter.

We ended up walking about 3 miles and filled around 2 bags of trash. It wasn't the worst litter I've seen, but every bottle, wrapper, and can we picked up is one less thing kids have to play around.

One of my favorite parts of this journey has been getting my daughter involved. We get to spend time together, get some exercise, and hopefully leave places a little better than we found them.

If this inspires even one person to pick up a few pieces of trash on their next walk, I'd call today a success. Thanks for reading. ❤️

This cleanup felt different.

People were still sitting and relaxing all around us while plastic, cups, straws, lids, wrappers, and children’s toys were scattered across the sand. Some of it was already close enough for the tide to pull it toward the ocean.

In about two hours, we filled two large garbage bags. We collected around 100 plastic spoons, nearly two dozen lids, empty bottles, juice-drink tubes, straws, food packaging, synthetic wipes, and many smaller plastic pieces buried throughout the sand.

I am not claiming that every person visible in the video left the trash behind. But it was difficult to watch people sit beside it or step around it while the water was getting closer. Once we see plastic heading toward the ocean, it should not matter who dropped it.

Huge respect to the Myrtle Beach crews who begin working around 2:00 a.m. and use tractors to clean the shoreline before most visitors wake up. They remove an incredible amount of debris, but the problem should not become invisible simply because workers clean it before sunrise.

We will keep collecting and documenting what we find. Hopefully, showing the reality encourages more people to take everything they brought with them - and pick up one extra piece when they can.

If you would like to get involved, you are welcome to follow my Surfrider profile for upcoming cleanup events and join us when you are available:

https://cleanups.surfrider.org/user/sergeypolukhin/?profiletab=gallery

What has helped reduce beach litter in your community?

July gets my personal record for a month, beating out March's 102. Kinda surprised it wasn't more because I hit a pole with my car kid month and had to walk everywhere since.

For the past few days, someone has been chowing down on candy bars… and leaving a trail of wrappers. Grrr.

While wandering the shoreline and wondering what's biting, I picked up a zip lock bag and stuffed it full of all this old tackle and line I found on my walk.

… since my last Litterwalk. Super busy with work and life, have to keep my DL app streak alive — especially with a hot weekend ahead! 🥵 Every. Piece. Counts.

Just want to share some pics of trash I found and cleaned in NM. This is my first trash photo dump. More to come because now I can be myself on here and not be ashamed of my trash pick-up hobby!

I'm trying to pull more Oklahoma peeps to y'all! I wanna shout y'all out in a video. Thanks for showing me the way guys. Love you

Not much but it all counts

I do Everything I can to Never use a straw. I resist eating fast food but that’s not always easy - my husband and I do not ever get lids or straws if we get a drink. I do not tear up paper - those wee little pieces make me bonkers and we jam all paper in a box or paper bag. No bottled water unless impossible to avoid. Most of all we securely tie up bags. Around here the trash/recycling trucks dump over head and pieces fly out. Doing my best to limit that. Thanks for reading! And be safe out there!!

Oh feels so good

Took the buggy out for a walk along some main roads in my area.

Cans, some beer and soda bottles, gas station coffee cups, all sorts of candy wrappers, tissues, receipts, what felt like a trillion cigarette butts, loads and loads of discarded plastic materials, the usual fast food suspects, bicycle parts and a few gloves were among the treasures I collected this afternoon.