Want to help keep the coast clean? Be a part of the massive Alabama Coastal Cleanup effort held on Sept. 16. Over the past 30 years, 83,000 volunteers have removed more than 1.5 million pounds of trash from our beautiful coastline and waterways.

The first step is to look at the online calendar for times and contact a zone captain in your area to register. But if you don’t register in advance, no worries. Those zones have check-in sites around the coast where volunteers can show up, sign up and get to picking up trash.

At the check-in site, you will get bags to fill, a T-shirt (while they last) and a list to check-off items found so the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources can track the data.

The most common items collected are cigarette butts, bottle caps, cans, bottles and candy wrappers. But those aren’t the only items found. Tires, refrigerators, scrap metal, mattresses and even old TV sets might litter the beach, but volunteers are told not to attempt to remove anything dangerous or heavy. Just mark the location and report it back to the zone captain.

So, what do you say? Are you willing to join us in getting the trash out of the splash? Just bring yourself, a hat, sunscreen, gloves and lots of water. September is a hot month on the coast, and you want to drink plenty of fluids. Also, please be sure an adult supervises children at all times.