Texas Beach Cleanups Remove Nearly 111,000 Pounds of Trash in 2026

Texans for Clean Water says four decades of volunteer cleanup demonstrate an opportunity to focus more attention on preventing recoverable materials from becoming litter

AUSTIN, Texas — September 30, 2026 — More than 10,000 volunteer participants have removed approximately 111,000 pounds of trash from Texas beaches during the state’s two coastwide Adopt-A-Beach cleanup events this year, highlighting both an extraordinary volunteer effort and the continuing need to prevent litter before it reaches the coast.

According to the Texas General Land Office, 6,106 volunteers participating in the September 19 Coastwide Fall Cleanup removed nearly 62,000 pounds of trash from Texas beaches. Earlier this year, 4,659 volunteers removed another 48,952 pounds during the April Coastwide Spring Cleanup.

“Texans keep showing up and doing an incredible job cleaning our beaches,” said Joe Trotter, Deputy Executive Director of Americans for Clean Water. “More than 100,000 pounds removed in two days of volunteer events is something worth celebrating. But it should also make us ask what we can do upstream so there is less trash waiting for them the next time they show up.”

The Adopt-A-Beach program marks its 40th anniversary this year. Since the program began in 1986, the General Land Office reports that more than 600,000 volunteer participants have removed more than 10,000 tons of trash from Texas beaches.

Texans for Clean Water says those numbers demonstrate the importance of cleanup while also making the case for greater attention to prevention.

Research published in Marine Policy in 2018 compared coastal debris surveys in U.S. and Australian jurisdictions with and without container-return incentives. Researchers found that the proportion of beverage containers in coastal debris was approximately 40 percent lower in jurisdictions with those incentives.

“A bottle or can is different from a lot of the material volunteers find because it is recoverable and still has economic value,” Trotter said. “If we can give Texans a practical reason to return that material, we have an opportunity to keep most of it out of the litter stream altogether while allowing it to remain in the stream of commerce.”

Texans for Clean Water supports market-driven approaches that increase the recovery of beverage containers while strengthening domestic recycling and manufacturing supply chains.

The organization emphasized that prevention should complement—not replace—the work of Adopt-A-Beach and the thousands of Texans who participate in it.

“Forty years of Adopt-A-Beach proves that Texans willing to clean their beaches are not in short supply,” Trotter said. “Our goal should be to give them less to clean.”

About Texans for Clean Water

Texans for Clean Water is a Texas-based coalition working to advance practical, market-driven solutions that increase beverage-container recovery, reduce litter and strengthen the supply of recyclable materials for domestic manufacturing.