Margaret Pace Park Cleanup

On Saturday, August 8, 2026, The International SeaKeepers Society returned to Margaret Pace Park in Downtown Miami for a coastal cleanup. After a three month hiatus, we were excited to be back at our monthly cleanup location, and the park was in need of a lot of love! We were joined by 22 volunteers at the park who gathered to help remove trash from the grass, the mangroves, the rocky shoreline, and the shallow water of Biscayne Bay. This park’s coastal location and high foot traffic make it a hotspot for marine debris, with trash from the park easily washing into the bay with windy conditions. The close proximity of Pace Picnic Island, a popular party island for boaters, causes an influx of trash into the water, which tends to wash up on the coast of the park. After a safety briefing, volunteers grabbed gloves, pickers, buckets, and bags, and headed out across the park to do their part to mitigate this debris crisis. Within two hours, our volunteers had collected more than 190 pounds of trash, with the majority of it coming from the shoreline and shallow water. It was low tide during the cleanup, so our volunteers were able to pull out a ton of debris amidst the decaying seagrass and sargassum, filling six entire garbage bags! Thanks to volunteers collecting data with Marine Debris Tracker, we were able to learn that the top items they found were cigarette butts, bottle caps, and plastic bottles. These small items leach chemicals into the environment as they break down, and can easily be ingested by marine life, leading to illness and possibly death. Thanks to our volunteers’ hard work, we know that much of this trash has been diverted from its path to the ocean. We can’t wait to return next month to continue the momentum!