Nearly 50 volunteers fanned out along the Gulf Shores public beach district for a 90-minute cleanup effort organized by Eco Clean Marine, a Baldwin County-based nonprofit dedicated to keeping South Alabama’s beaches and waterways free of litter.
The volunteer group, made up of 46 members of the Lower Alabama Young Professionals working alongside the Eco-Marine team, collected 65 five-gallon buckets of trash from the beach and surrounding waterways. Before heading out, volunteers were treated to a free breakfast provided by The Hangout.
“At Eco Clean Marine, we believe that building a stronger community is just as important as cleaning our environment. Every cleanup is about more than removing trash. It’s about bringing people together, creating meaningful connections, and showing what can happen when we all work toward a common goal. That’s how real, lasting change begins,” said Eco-Marine founder Courtney Dombroski.
Dombroski founded the nonprofit in Gulf Shores in 2022 after noticing trash accumulating in the marsh while servicing her fish-feeding vending machines along the coast. Since then, Eco Clean Marine has grown into a regular presence on the Alabama and Florida Panhandle coastline, hosting both public and private beach cleanups that stretch from Fort Morgan to Panama City Beach. The organization collects debris in reusable five-gallon buckets rather than plastic bags, a small but deliberate choice meant to keep additional plastic out of the environment during each event.
Organizers say the cleanups are as much about community building as environmental stewardship, giving residents and visitors a hands-on way to help protect the beaches that anchor the region’s tourism economy.