Cushman Community Cleanup

On Saturday, November 15, 2025, The International SeaKeepers Society partnered with The Cushman School to engage students, parents and Cushman community members in a coastal cleanup at Margaret Pace Park. We were joined by 57 dedicated volunteers at the entrance of the park, where they listened to a safety briefing, grabbed protective gear, and set out to clean up the shoreline. Margaret Pace Park lies directly on the coast of Biscayne Bay, and despite regular cleanup efforts at this site, lots of debris accumulates and enters the Bay. The park’s urban location as the proximity of heavily trafficked picnic islands results in the shoreline being inundated with trash from all sides, putting the nearby marine life at risk, such as the stingray some volunteers spotted! Within two hours, our volunteers had returned many times to empty their bags and buckets which were full to the brim of things like plastic and glass bottles, aluminum cans, and soft plastic food wrappers. Some volunteers even came back with large objects like an abandoned paddle and waterlogged blankets. By the end of the event, our volunteers had removed over 182 pounds of trash which was placed in garbage bags and properly disposed of. When they were done, many volunteers participated in educational activities such as Sink or Float and marine science trivia jenga to learn more about the impact of marine debris on our ecosystem. We are so thankful to all the members of the Cushman community who came out to do their part for our ocean, and we look forward to collaborating with them again next year!

Marine Debris Tracker is a data collection app that allows the general public to contribute to an open-date platform and scientific research by recording the different types of litter, specifically plastic pollution, that they find in either inland or marine environments. Marine Debris Tracker was developed by the University of Georgia’s Jambeck Research Group, which SeaKeepers worked with in 2021 when the Jambeck Research Group collaborated with Ocean Conservancy to assess Miami’s plastic waste management, known as a Circularity Assessment Protocol. SeaKeepers again assisted the Jambeck Research Group’s Circularity Informatics Lab in 2022 with another Circularity Assessment Protocol in the Florida Keys. The researchers of the Jambeck Lab use the Marine Debris Tracker app to record their data, and with citizen scientists also using the app, more data can be collected in different areas. Using Marine Debris Tracker at our cleanups involves community members in creating a bigger picture of plastic pollution, and provides the means for new scientific findings to be generated as well as for effective local legislation to be informed. SeaKeepers is excited to be incorporating this app at our cleanups and continue our mission of coastal education, protection, and restoration. In this cleanup, 7% of volunteers participated in using the app to record data.