Showing love to our minds, bodies, planet 💕

We are still basking in the afterglow of our yoga & beach cleanup event 😍☁️ As we began February with unity and purpose, we gathered at the 5th Street lifeguard tower at Miami Beach, embracing both friends and strangers alike, all connected by our shared love for yoga and clean oceans.

Together, we proudly removed 44 pounds of trash, leaving Miami Beach cleaner and our spirits brighter. 🧘🏻‍♀️✨

Thank you to the EPA for their generous funding of this cleanup event! 🌊 Special appreciation goes to Julianne Aerhee for guiding us through such a beautiful flow, connecting us to the essence of nature with each breath and movement.

To all who joined us, we are deeply grateful for your presence and passion. We are already counting down the days until our next yoga cleanup together 🥰

Protecting our vital mangrove ecosystem!

Mangroves are a critical habitat and act as nurseries for juvenile fish, sharks, turtles, and several other marine organisms! 🐠 They protect our shoreline from storms and filter our water to maintain water quality and clarity 💧

That’s why we partnered with Earth Breeze for a coastal & mangrove cleanup on Saturday, January 28th at North Bayshore Park to show our mangroves some love! 🍃 Our mangroves are some of Miami’s most precious gems!

Together we removed close to 270 pounds of debris! 💪🏼 Shout out to our hardworking volunteers who dedicated their Saturday morning to maintaining the health of our precious mangroves and Biscayne Bay.

This event was led by our graduate Chef Andrew Scholar, Bethany! Way to go 🤩

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Earth Breeze for their generous sponsorship, which made this event possible. 🫧

Huge thank you to the City of North Miami for opening their beautiful park for us, and allowing us to lend them a hand in cleaning our mangroves and coastline of Biscayne Bay 🩵

Supporting local businesses while beautifying Little Havana!

“Little Havana has been deemed a national treasure, yet is drowning in street litter.” – Louis Aguirre, Local 10 News anchor and environmental advocate

Debris Free Oceans partnered up with Healthy Little Havana for a Cleanup Crawl sponsored by District 5 Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins. This was a massive effort that spanned 12 city blocks, from SW 8th Street to 12th Avenue. Over the span of three hours, we were able to remove 353 pounds of trash from the streets of Little Havana!

Together, we travelled through the streets of Little Havana, armed with gloves and trash bags, ready to tackle the litter problem head-on. We stopped for plastic-free drinks in our DFO cups at El Gallito Grill, and finished strong with some light bites at San Lorenzo Miami.

Our event was covered by Channel 10’s Don’t Trash Our Treasure. We are grateful to the team for coming out and raising awareness to the waste crisis in Little Havana.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this event! We hope to see you at the next one.

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La Pequeña Havana ha sido considerada un tesoro nacional, pero las calles se están ahogando en basura. – Louis Aguirre, presentador de noticias de Local 10 y defensor del medio ambiente (traducción)

Debris Free Oceans se asoció con Healthy Little Havana para un Cleanup Crawl patrocinado por la Comisionada del Condado de Miami-Dade, Eileen Higgins, del Distrito 5. Este fue un esfuerzo masivo que abarcó 12 manzanas de la ciudad, desde la SW 8th Street hasta la 12th Avenue. ¡En el transcurso de tres horas, logramos retirar 353 libras de basura de las calles de Little Havana!

Juntos, recorrimos las calles de Little Havana, armados con guantes y bolsas de basura, listos para abordar el problema de la basura de frente. Hicimos una parada para tomar bebidas sin plástico en nuestras tazas de DFO en El Gallito Grill, y concluimos fuertes con algunas delicias en San Lorenzo Miami.

Nuestro evento fue cubierto por Don’t Trash Our Treasure de Canal 10. Agradecemos al equipo por salir y crear conciencia sobre la crisis de residuos en Little Havana.

¡Gracias a todos los que participaron en este evento! Esperamos verte en el próximo.”

Haulting fast fashion trends by swapping for Spooky season!

Over 80% of Halloween costumes are made from synthetic materials (AKA plastic!). Instead of buying new and contributing to wasteful fashion trends, we hosted a spooky swap to keep things #circular and avoid needless waste!

Thanks to all who came out!! Costumes, clothes, books, plants, & stories were exchanged! Friends from Volunteercleanup.org, Plastic Free Cities, Handy Beach Goods, and more came out strong! Equally as amazing were the folks who joined last minute when they realized there was a swap going on! Here’s to continuing to build a beautiful and strong zero-waste community here in Miami!

Huge thanks to Earth Breeze for sponsoring such a fun + impactful event and to Unbranded Brewing Co. for continuing to host us and champion a more sustainable, plastic-free Miami, one swap at a time. Swaps are popping up ALL over town, so keep an eye out year-round and join the zero-waste movement with us!

Check out some moments from the day below!

110 lbs of marine debris removed from Florida’s Coral Reef!

& marine debris data submitted to PADI Project Aware and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection!

What a magical day! Thank you so much for coming out for a successful scuba cleanup as part of the Florida DEP’s 12th Annual Southeast Florida Reef Cleanup with Rescue a Reef and Deco Divers! We collected 110 lbs of marine debris, including heavy items such as a plastic pipe and a metal fence fragment that took a lot of teamwork to swim to the boat!

You can view our data from dive one here and dive two here. You can also view all of the local marine incidents reported to the FDEP’s Southeast Florida Action Network and submit future incidents on this page, including Bleachwatch reports to detect and monitor coral bleaching and disease.

We were very lucky to have our hometown hero and Channel 10’s Louis Aguirre onboard to capture the story. It’s critical that we see the connection between our actions on land, our single-use disposable lifestyle, and the degradation of our reefs. We also had junior divers onboard who will help pave the way toward a more sustainable Miami!

Check out the event photo gallery below! Thank you @ocean_gal_photos for capturing most shots!

89 lbs of marine debris removed from Florida’s Coral Reef

& marine debris data submitted to PADI Project Aware and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection!

We teamed up with University of Miami’s Rescue a Reef and the Diver’s Paradise team to collaborate on a scuba cleanup on International Coastal Cleanup Day 2023! We were 1 of 58 cleanups county-wide on September 16th, with a total of 2,929 volunteers and 22,233 lbs of trash collected! This effort was made possible by the amazing and tireless work of the volunteercleanup.org team locally as well as the Ocean Conservancy. 

Unlike most of the other cleanups, ours was underwater on the Florida Reef Track! Huge thanks to the 20 divers who came out to collect data on coral bleaching + clean up our beloved home reefs with us! We found plastic bags and a red solo cup out on the reef, illustrating that our disposable social choices have a lasting impact. We discussed how investing in the #reuse future is our way out of this debris disaster and toward a sustainable future. We talked about how single-use plastics are needlessly polluting our environment but that it doesn’t need to be this way! Check out some of our zero-waste tips n’ tricks on our Instagram! You can view our data from dive 1 here and dive 2 here.

While we still couldn’t outplant coral due to the summer’s record-breaking heat wave, we conducted important BleachWatch surveys that will inform the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and researchers on next steps to protect our precious reefs. 

Take a look at photos from the day in the gallery below! #MiamiCleanup2023 #SeaTheChange

helped to plant Rescue a Reef’s 10,000th coral baby!

& marine debris data submitted to PADI Project Aware and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection!

Full boat, full hearts, can’t lose! Thank you to the 29 champions of women in STEM who joined us on this incredible dive day in Key Biscayne! We started the morning off with a powerful yoga flow led by the generous CorePower Yoga team.  Then, DFO and Rescue a Reef both briefed the group on how to conduct a PADI Dive Against Debris and a coral restoration dive, respectively.

We headed out to nearby Paradise Reef and got to searching for debris + out-planting baby corals! We found that this particular reef site was pretty clean already as a result of being well-managed by the University of Miami team; you can check out our marine debris report here. On the coral restoration dive, we helped to plant Rescue a Reef’s 10,000th coral to date!

Check out the event photo gallery below!