60 Volunteers Pull 3,000 Pounds of Trash from California River

Sixty volunteers spent a Sunday morning making a California river sparkle again, and endangered sea turtles are the big winners.

The Surfrider Foundation Long Beach held its third annual San Gabriel River cleanup on May 31, 2026, partnering with the Aquarium of the Pacific. Families showed up with gloves and grabbers, ready to intercept trash before it flowed into the ocean.

In just under four hours, the team collected 2,581 pounds of debris from the riverbanks. That's nearly a ton and a half of shopping carts, fishing wire, plastic cups, and fireworks that won't end up choking marine life.

The cleanup matters especially because Pacific green sea turtles, an endangered species, now call this river home. "This is a precious sea turtle habitat," said Murriel McCabe from Surfrider's executive committee. "That's part of what we're really trying to do, to make all of this river a safer place for our local ecology."

Five-year-old Robin captured the mission perfectly. "We're picking up trash so ducks and turtles don't eat everything," he explained while working alongside his parents.

His mother, Kendall Oshiro-Hernandez, shared why the event meant so much to their family. "My son is five, and even though he's really young, he already has planet anxiety. So we're out here helping pick up trash to keep it from getting in the river and the ocean, and it makes him feel better that he's doing a small part."

Volunteer Bryan Albiston summed up the morning's work simply. "We're cleaning up the San Gabriel River today to basically save the ocean, save the wildlife that's around here, help out the community, help out this beautiful resource that we have."

The Ripple Effect

This single morning represents just one wave in a much larger tide of change. Across California, Surfrider chapters organized more than 600 cleanups in 2024 alone, pulling over 75,000 pounds of trash from state beaches in one year.

The Long Beach chapter has been doing this work since 1996, growing to more than 1,000 active members. Each cleanup brings new families into the movement, teaching the next generation that small actions create real change.

Dawn Nygren-Burkert from the Aquarium of the Pacific watched the diverse crowd working together. "It is amazing to get out here with the community to clean this shared waterway and make sure that our ecosystem is healthy and clean for all of us to enjoy."

Next month, another cleanup will happen, and the turtles will swim in cleaner water because people showed up on a Sunday morning.