Beach & Community Cleanups

Creating a litter-free Tahoe through community cleanups

Tahoe’s beaches, forests and meadows are treasures. But they are often overused and abused.

As part of our campaign to combat pollution at Lake Tahoe, we organize and host beach and community cleanups throughout the year to prevent litter and other pollutants from reaching Lake Tahoe.

What if no one picked up the litter left on Tahoe’s beaches?

Cigarette butts, plastic trash and food waste pose a serious risk to Lake Tahoe’s delicate ecology, its natural beauty and its wildlife. Through the League’s range of cleanup events, our volunteers, staff and partners have removed tens of thousands of pounds of litter from Tahoe’s environment.

Food and beverage trash

Food and beverage trash

Wrappers, cups, cans, and utensils are made for just a single-use, but they can remain in the environment for hundreds of years.
Plastic litter

Plastic litter

It never decomposes, but it does break down into microplastics, which are all but impossible to remove from trails, beaches and the water.
Cigarette butts

Cigarette butts

The most commonly found type of litter. Our volunteers and staff remove tens of thousands from the environment each year.

Get Involved

It takes a village to Keep Tahoe Blue. Whether you’re a long-time local or a first-time visitor, you can be part of the solution.

COMBAT POLLUTION ON YOUR OWN. Use the free Citizen Science Tahoe app to report litter wherever you find it, then put that trash where it belongs – safely secured in a trash can or take it with you to dispose of at home. Our team uses the data you report through the app to advocate for policy solutions, so one day in the future there won’t be any litter to clean up.

TAKE PART IN A CLEANUP. Participating in one of our cleanups is a fun and meaningful way to protect Lake Tahoe. We invite you to join hundreds of members of the #TahoeBlueGooder family for our next outing. Find the cleanup for you on our events calendar, sign up and get excited to Keep Tahoe Blue! We often partner with other nonprofit groups, agencies or corporations. Contact us to get involved.

FORM A TAHOE BLUE CREW. Tahoe Blue Crews adopt and care for their own little corners of this special place. Our staff will help you adopt an area impacted by litter anywhere in the Tahoe-Truckee region, equip you to conduct trash cleanups, and train you to gather litter data that informs the League’s advocacy efforts and other litter solutions. When your Crew is up and running, you can host your own cleanup events and invite others to join in.

Keep Tahoe Red, White and Blue Beach Cleanups

Tahoe’s beaches need attention throughout the summer season, especially after Fourth of July festivities. Our Keep Tahoe Red, White and Blue Beach Cleanups are hosted at multiple locations throughout Tahoe on July 5.

Cleanup days keep our beaches clean and healthy for everyone to enjoy. The League partners with local land agencies to implement cleanups in areas of high recreation use. Following Independence Day, Tahoe’s shores top the list.

In 2023, our volunteers and partners removed 6,300 pounds of litter from a single beach – Zephyr Shoals – in three hours. It made headlines across the country and around the world and is leading to major beach management changes.

Explore 11 years of data from “Keep Tahoe Red, White & Blue” cleanups in this interactive StoryMap.

Bike Path Cleanups

June brings the Tahoe Bike Challenge to the Basin. Throughout the month, teams compete to see how many miles they can ride, walk and hike – avoiding tailpipe emissions and road degradation that can harm Lake Tahoe’s blue waters.

The League kicks off the Tahoe Bike Challenge with a bike path cleanup at the start of June each year. Volunteers fan out across the region on bikes and on foot to prepare bike paths for the summer.

Labor Day Cleanups

Labor Day is the last hoorah of summer, and the celebrations tend to leave a mess. In coordination with agencies and groups around the Lake, the League and our volunteers remove litter from multiple impacted sites after the holiday weekend.

This cleanup is an important opportunity to remove pollutants from Tahoe’s beaches before winter storms carry them into the Lake.

See our 2023 Cleanups recap

Explore the maps below to understand the importance of beach and community cleanups.

(For mobile viewing, turn your phone sideways.)

SCIENCE TO SOLUTIONS. As League volunteers collect trash, they also tabulate statistics on the items they find, which are then analyzed for trends. Citizen science data, like what you see mapped below, provides our team of policy experts the factual evidence they need to lobby for solutions, such as local bans on frequently littered items including plastic bags, Styrofoam, and single-use plastic water bottles. Learn more about the League’s Science to Solutions approach.

This dashboard maps the top five types of litter found through the League’s cleanup events and the work of its Tahoe Blue Crews, 2014-2021 (the Blue Crew program began in 2019). The analysis and mapping was completed by Madio Wallner as part of an undergraduate senior thesis at Vassar College. Her project also included this literature review that discusses the negative effects of certain litter material types in the lake environment, along with Lake Tahoe’s history of environmental challenges.