It includes a celebration of our estuaries, places where rivers meet the sea. The largest Coastweek event is the annual Coastal Cleanup. Maine's Coastal Cleanup is an annual event held in late September or early October. Maine Coastal Cleanup Day in 2000 is Saturday, September 30, though cleanups will take place in the days leading up to and following the official day. The largest single volunteer event in the state, it involves people picking up trash from the state's rocky and sandy shoreline.
Volunteers meet at a specified site.
People are grouped in twos or threes, with one or two picking up the trash and the other recording the type of debris on special data cards. They note the distance they cover, the number of trash bags they fill, and any unusual objects they pick up. A special note is made of any dead animals found, particularly those entangled in plastic. Volunteers turn in their data cards to the cleanup site coordinator. The data cards are eventually sent to the Center for Marine Conservation, an international marine environmental organization that keeps a national database on marine debris and works to reduce its presence in the marine environment.