Spreading awareness and driving real change for ocean, lake, and river ecosystems — through gaming, community volunteering, and marine education. From Chicago to the world.
This initiative unites entertainment, action, and knowledge into one purpose: cleaner waterways for Chicago and communities around the world.
Dive into an interactive game where players clean up virtual waterways, rescue marine life, and learn conservation mechanics in a fun, engaging environment.
Connect with real-world clean-up events across Chicago's lakefront, rivers, and harbors — as well as international conservation missions worldwide.
Access curated information about marine ecosystems, freshwater biodiversity, pollution science, and actionable steps you can take to protect waterways.
The online game simulates real waterway ecosystems. Players collect plastic waste from a river to prevent ocean pollution while educational information is displayed — making impact feel tangible and fun.
Understanding the scale of the problem is the first step to solving it. Here are the facts that drive this mission.
Stored in the ocean, over 18 times more than the 2,000 gigatonnes stored on land, highlighting its crucial role in carbon sequestration.
Marine Protected Areas (MPA), which are regions where human activity is limited to protect marine life.
Covered by oceans
The estimated value of the global ocean economy, supporting various sectors like fisheries, shipping, tourism, and energy.
Rely on seafood as their primary source of protein, highlighting the ocean's crucial role in global food security.
Contains all life on Earth, with millions of species yet to be discovered, emphasizing its immense biodiversity.
From Chicago's shores to coasts around the globe, every weekend is an opportunity to make a direct, visible impact on local waterways.
Events like coastal sweeps, mangrove cleanups, awareness-raising campaigns, citizen science or other activities.
The Great Lakes Cleanup Collaborative had a huge impact on the health of our local waterways across the Great Lakes basin and was a sweeping success.
Help us tackle plastic pollution in our one world ocean and start your own Do-it-yourself (D.I.Y.) ocean plastic cleanup! By yourself or with friends or family, every piece of plastic you recover helps reduce ocean pollution, save wildlife, and protect the health of future generations through a beach cleanup volunteer near me D-I-Y effort!
Friends of the Chicago River partners with community leaders, municipalities, and landowners to host our largest volunteer stewardship day of the year.
OLF regularly organizes cleanup expeditions with small qualified groups out into our oceans and shorelines to collect ocean plastic pollution. We can always use qualified volunteers to join us, offering their skills, time and energy to the cause of ocean cleanup.
You can make a difference at your favorite Great Lakes shoreline. Join a cleanup near you – or host one of your own.
Love the ocean and talking with people? Help educate the public, lead activities, promote petitions, and inspire action to protect our coast.
Chicago's premier corporate beach cleanup experience — unite your team, restore the lakefront.
The Ocean Wise Shoreline Cleanup provides citizen scientists, school groups, and any water lovers with the simplest way to take action in their communities. By joining a Shoreline Cleanup, you are making a meaningful difference.