Making Plastics Count: Citizen Science Beach Cleanups and the Ocean Plastic Pollution Crisis (1980s–2020s)

In the 1980s, women in Oregon, Texas, and New Jersey organized the first “citizen beach cleanups,” directing volunteers to not simply clean up but collate data on the number and type of trash washing up on American shores. These efforts introduced the wider public to ocean plastic pollution, thereby instigating a “second plastic crisis,” powerfully countering neoliberal framings of environmental responsibility that blamed litter on individuals. As the beach cleanup movement grew bigger and international under the helm of the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy in the 1990s and 2000s, the focus shifted from ocean- to land-based sources of trash. In turn, a new data-collection method was introduced that put the onus on individual behavior. Finally, over the last decade or so, a new wave of waste-reduction activism has challenged this framing, seeking to return the spotlight on the companies that sell single-use plastics and thereby instigating a “third plastic crisis.” Illustrating the key role of data collection in the making of the ocean plastic pollution crisis, this article argues that beach cleanups have been instrumental in shaping not only how we view plastics but also how we assign blame for its proliferation in the environment.