Highlights from the 30th Annual Source to Sea Cleanup
Thirty years into the Source to Sea Cleanup, volunteers continue to demonstrate the impact of community-led efforts to protect and restore the Connecticut River watershed. This year, 140 groups participated throughout New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, making it one of the watershed’s largest coordinated volunteer events.
Despite the threat of a Nor’easter, volunteers turned out to remove trash from rivers, shorelines, and surrounding communities. While we work on compiling all the data and photos for this year's Cleanup Chronicle (as reference, here was the 2025 Cleanup Chronicle), here are a handful of fantastic cleanups we have heard about so far!
New Hampshire
In New Hampshire, a group from Hypertherm collected 44 tires and more than 3,000 pounds of trash in Plainfield. Their improvised pirate ship proved quite helpful for lugging debris from the water!
Eight adults and four children collected 100 pounds of trash during a 2.5-mile cleanup of Grant Brook in Lyme, including a tire and rusted car parts. Group leader Niles Donegan was encouraged by the brook’s overall condition and hopes to identify other challenging cleanup sites in town.
Vermont
In Vermont, the Passumpsic Valley Land Trust led a cleanup that recovered a whopping 196 tires, including bicycle, car, and tractor tires. Connecticut River Conservancy staff member Fritz Gerhardt praised the event’s organization and the enthusiasm of participants, expressing interest in continuing the effort next year.
The Black River Action Team (BRAT) partnered with 22 Hypertherm associates to collect approximately 2,075 pounds of trash along 10 miles of the Black and Connecticut Rivers during a five-hour cleanup. Volunteers removed 59 tires, bicycles, shopping carts, beverage containers, and a variety of other debris.
Massachusetts
In Massachusetts, 200 volunteers with the Fort River Watershed Association removed 650 pounds of trash, including 864 beverage containers, 396 golf balls, and nearly 1,000 cigarette butts.
The Green River Cleanup brought together 175 volunteers, CRC staff, local officials, Franklin County Sheriff's Office personnel, and local businesses to tackle multiple challenging sites. State Senator Jo Comerford and Candidate for the MA House of Representatives 1st Franklin Country District, Lora Wondolowski, were among the volunteers.
Barlow’s Excavating provided essential equipment and skilled assistance, and the Boys of the Landfill bluegrass band kept spirits high with original trash-themed music. Many thousands of pounds of trash, recycling materials, and scrap metal were collected in addition to over a dozen tires. Much of the debris came from no-longer-in-use encampments along the river, highlighting the complexity of addressing riverbank waste and the need for broader community solutions.
The cleanup of the Connecticut River in the Northampton Meadows brought together Kestrel Land Trust, 93.9 The River, Representative Lindsay Sabadosa, and Connecticut River Conservancy. Volunteers removed two televisions, an axle with tires attached, a mattress, multiple illegal dumping sites, and more, while collecting over 20 large bags of trash.
Connecticut
In Connecticut, volunteer divers from Enfield Scuba & Watersports conducted an underwater lake cleanup and were concerned by the amount of plastic, beer bottles, and golf balls found on the lake bottom. Their work highlighted the debris that can accumulate underwater and remain out of sight during shoreline cleanups.
Essex, Connecticut, recorded its largest cleanup participation to date, with more than 50 volunteers working at five locations near the mouth of the Connecticut River. They filled a trailer and two pickup truck beds with debris, along with numerous bags of bottles, cans, and plastic. Items included four tires, plastic hoses, foam dock materials, lumber, metal poles, and plastic fragments. Organizers noted that the volume of plastic remains frustrating, though they have observed a decline in plastic grocery bags.
Twenty-six VHB employees, family members, friends, and Wesleyan University students removed more than 1,500 pounds of trash from over a mile of Connecticut River shoreline. Before the cleanup, participants learned about the area's history and ongoing river restoration work. Two bald eagles also made an appearance during the event!
Eversource employees came out in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, AND Connecticut, with 2026 being the 10th year that Eversource has sponsored and participated in the cleanup. Since Eversource began sponsoring the event, their teams have cleared 550+ bags of trash and 10,000+ beverate containers from local waterways.
These represent just a portion of the work completed by participating nonprofits, museums, schools, businesses, families, and community organizations throughout the watershed.
CRC is grateful to the sponsors who help make this annual event possible, including All American Waste, USA Waste & Recycling, The Antonacci Family Foundation, Eversource, The Walker Group, Berkshire Home Company, and the Hypertherm Associates Hope Foundation, along with the additional sponsors listed here. Many sponsoring businesses also organized their own volunteer groups, extending their support beyond financial contributions to directly improve the health of waterways in their local communities.
If you participated in this year's cleanup and haven't sent us your photos, anecdotes or trash tally, it's not too late. Submissions can be sent through the Source to Sea Cleanup website by the end of October, 2026.
If you participated but were not included among the groups above, please know that we appreciate you! The Cleanup Chronicle to be released by the end of 2026 will include a more complete list of participating groups.
