Great British Beach Clean (Marine Conservation Society)
The UK’s annual survey-clean, 18 to 27 September 2026, where every item on a 100 m stretch is recorded; year-round beach cleans too.
Resources for schools and families
Lesson plans, audits, experiments, conversation cards and vetted external resources by age.
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Sea Shepherd Marine Debris Campaign clean-ups
Monthly volunteer beach and waterway clean-ups run by Sea Shepherd chapters around Australia, with all debris counted as citizen-science data.
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Surfrider Foundation beach cleanups (US)
Chapter-run beach cleanups across the United States; 365,000+ pounds collected in 2024. Find one on the cleanups site or volunteer through a chapter.
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Great Global Cleanup (EarthDay.org)
Year-round map where anyone can register or find a clean-up anywhere in the world; free toolkit and a plastics petition.
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International Coastal Cleanup (Ocean Conservancy)
The world’s largest one-day clean-up, held each September, with every item counted in the Clean Swell app and published as open data.
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Check a charity before you give
Five free registers: Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) (Australia), Charity Commission (UK), Charity Navigator and Candid (US), Charity Intelligence (Canada). Two minutes, no…
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Sydney Institute of Marine Science
Australian marine research institute where gifts of $2+ are tax-deductible; it hosts microplastics-in-oysters work but has no plastics-only fund.
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University of Plymouth marine research (Richard Thompson’s unit)
Give to the university’s Marine Research fund, home of the International Marine Litter Research Unit that coined ‘microplastics’.
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Plymouth Marine Laboratory
UK research charity (1091222) whose microplastics team includes Pennie Lindeque and Matthew Cole. Gifts are arranged by email; there is no online button.
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Market Forces: move your bank and super (fossil fuels, not plastics)
Compare which Australian banks and super funds finance fossil fuels and switch. Note: the tools do not assess petrochemical or plastics exposure.