The International Coastal Cleanup, designed by Ocean Conservancy, is an international initiative which takes place September 1st through October 31st encouraging the removal of trash from our beaches and waterways around the world. This cleanup is fueled by volunteer organizations and individuals to change behavior toward cleaner, healthier waterways. Each piece of debris collected from the cleanup site is identified and tracked to provide a cumulative understanding of the marine debris in our waterway.

The Community Appearance Index, also known as the Litter Index, is a tool designed by Keep America Beautiful to visually evaluate the overall appearance of a community using litter as an indicator. Every year, 60 routes throughout the 5 wards of Norfolk are analyzed to determine the cleanliness of the city. After a brief training, a team of volunteers conduct the analysis using a scoring system ranging from 1-4 with “1” indicating minimal to no litter and “4” indicating extremely littered.