Cleanup with BNY Wealth

On Sunday, May 17, 2026, The International SeaKeepers Society partnered with BNY Wealth for a cleanup with the team at their Brickell, Miami office. We were joined by 26 volunteers – including many BNY employees, their families, and a couple of our Junior SeaKeepers – at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park on the tip of Key Biscayne, Florida. This park is a critical ecosystem for Miami’s marine life and seabirds, as well as a very popular location for residents to spend their sunny days, making it prone to pollution. After a safety briefing, the group grabbed gloves, pickers, and buckets and set out to search the grassy area of the park, the mangroves, and the sandy beach in search of trash that may make its way into the waters of Biscayne Bay. Throughout the park we found a lot of debris, with items ranging from abandoned beach umbrellas to microplastics and styrofoam beads. Bottle caps, aluminum cans, plastic straws and utensils, and glass and plastic bottles seemed to be the most frequently found items, with the overwhelming majority of the trash made of plastic. Collecting these plastic items from our shorelines is crucial to protecting the marine life that frequent this area, by preventing it from breaking down into smaller pieces that become difficult to remove and are easily ingested by animals. May marks the beginning of sea turtle nesting season in Miami-Dade County, and we were excited to see multiple nests that had been identified and marked off by neon tape. Seeing these nests is a reminder of the amazing animals that call Florida waters home, and why it is so important to keep our shores and seas free of debris. By the end of the cleanup, the group had collected over 55 pounds of trash from the park, surpassing their initial goal to collect 50 pounds of waste. We are so grateful to BNY Wealth for their partnership, and we look forward to continuing this collaboration!