Dani DiIullo and Vanessa van Heerden

Located at the base of the largest North American watershed, Louisiana can receive waterborne debris from more than 43% of the continental United States. Major storms, like hurricanes Delta, Ida and Laura, create tremendous amounts of debris along our coast. And along roadways, millions of pieces of litter are discarded annually. This debris adds up, making Louisiana the eighth most littered state.

In addition to how unsightly litter is, there are also costs to the community. Data from Keep Louisiana Beautiful reveal that the state spends more than $80 million annually on litter remediation and enforcement — much of that burden is borne by local governments. To help combat this pervasive problem, the Louisiana Sea Grant College Program, in partnership with the LSU AgCenter, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and Pontchartrain Conservancy, engages K-12 students, fishing communities and local governments in debris removal and prevention education.

K-12 School Efforts

Louisiana Sea Grant (LSG) has a long history of project-based learning. The Consider Litter program is the newest addition to that portfolio. This initiative fosters stewardship as students clean up, identify and characterize the litter that accumulates on their campus over the course of a year. Since the program’s inception in 2023, LSG and its partner Pontchartrain Conservancy have supported 15 schools on campus cleanup efforts, worked with more than 1,000 students and collected more than 7,000 pieces of trash from school campuses and surrounding communities.

Once students better understand the sources of litter, they are encouraged to establish community action projects to address the causes. For some, this means developing litter prevention signage, creating different trash and recycling streams or implementing campus composting to support their community garden. For all participants, students, teachers and community members, this helps expose the pervasiveness of litter while positioning students as environmental stewards in their community.

LSG also developed new activities centered around marine debris and integrated them into other youth programs. For example, the Adopt-a-Pond and 4-H programs participated in wetland cleanups. Marsh Dawgs summer campers learned about the prevalence of microplastics in water samples and their impact on wetland habitats, waterway uses and community health. These activities, coupled with communitywide cleanups in St. Bernard and Lafourche parishes, resulted in another 371 people collecting more than 13,300 pounds of litter.

Municipal Programming

Five named storms made landfall in Louisiana in 2020 alone. Cleaning up traditional litter is challenging enough, but when adding debris generated by hurricanes, it puts incredible financial burdens on recovering communities. It’s critical that decision-makers have the best information possible to plan and prepare, particularly when it comes to storm-related debris. LSU AgCenter economist Matthew Fannin, with Sea Grant funding, developed the Financial Debris Management Simulation tool to help increase municipalities’ awareness of their financial vulnerability to storm-related marine debris and demonstrate the value of proactive cleanup measures.

Fannin will soon travel the coastal zone, showing the usefulness of the tool to local leaders. Fannin also will modify the tool with a youth education model that demonstrates the benefit of reducing marine debris in students’ daily lives through litter cleanups and other prevention measures.

Crab Trap Cleanups

As befitting the Sportsman’s Paradise, Louisiana has a long history of fishing, both commercially and recreationally. Occasionally, marine debris is generated from these activities, particularly after storms. Each year, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) conducts its Derelict Crab Trap Removal Program to remove unused and damaged crab traps from state waterways. First, the department announces crab harvest closures for specific areas and gives fishermen time to remove their working traps. Then LDWF holds cleanup events in those locations. Last year, there were six cleanup events that resulted in the removal of 2,142 derelict traps.

Since the program’s inception in 2004, more than 57,000 derelict or abandoned crab traps have been removed from coastal Louisiana waters. LSG has been a long-term partner in this effort, helping both with the cleanup events, but also conducting research on the bycatch that these abandoned traps collect. Through these collaborations, we know more about the environmental costs of derelict gear and continue to work to mitigate the effects.

Whether proactively reducing storm-related marine debris, promoting stewardship or raising awareness, Louisiana Sea Grant helps communities better understand the challenges that litter creates. By using its vetted system of integrated research, education and outreach, LSG is working to ensure that Louisiana stays clean and healthy for generations to come.

Dani DiIullo is the director of education and engagement at Louisiana Sea Grant, and Vanessa van Heerden is the program’s engagement specialist.

This article appears in the fall 2025 issue of Louisiana Agriculture.

Volunteers collect disused crab traps during a Derelict Crab Trap Rodeo near Dularge, Louisiana. Photo by Louisiana Sea Grant

High school students from Terrebonne Parish conduct a litter cleanup in Grand Isle, Louisiana. Within 30 minutes, the students collected, removed and categorized over 400 pieces of litter. Photo by Louisiana Sea Grant

Middle school students from Tangipahoa Parish participate in an interactive activity that teaches about the biomagnification and bioaccumulation of microplastics in aquatic organisms. This activity is used in conjunction with litter cleanups in wetland habitats to reinforce the rationale for preventing marine debris. Photo by Louisiana Sea Grant