31st Annual Milwaukee Riverkeeper Earth Day Cleanup Breaks World Record!
May 18, 2026 | Topics: Events, Spotlight
By Eddee Daniel
April 25, 2026 will officially go down in history—or at least in the Guinness Book of World Records—as the day Milwaukee organized the largest river cleanup … ever! And furthermore, what the official record of just over 2,000 participants doesn’t reveal is that the actual number of participants that day was well over double that number. What an accomplishment!
The real reward for that accomplishment, of course, is cleaner rivers and waterways, which is the central mission of Milwaukee Riverkeeper, the event organizer. This was the 31st annual river cleanup associated with Earth Day/Earth Week every April. As a founding board member of Milwaukee Riverkeeper, I have documented most of them over the years. I definitely noticed the higher attendance at this year’s event—and that was just at the one site, the Kinnickinnic River between Lincoln Avenue and 6th Street. Because of the Guinness requirements every participant had to be present and be counted as the cleanup began. We had a block-long line!
Ours was just one of 124 cleanup sites located along Milwaukee’s three rivers, The Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinnic. The logistics of attempting an official world record were demanding. Here’s how Mike Schroeder, Communications & Outreach Specialist with Milwaukee Riverkeeper, described it:
“For the official Guinness World Record Title attempt, we had to submit a plan and select the exact sites included in the attempt in advance. In order to maintain a fair comparison with previous attempts, we were only allowed to count sites that had 50 or more attendees. To ensure this was the case, individuals had to register in advance and trained independent observers were present to ensure compliance at the locations that met this criterion. These sites had to coordinate the start time, and observers had to witness 30 straight minutes of cleaning.”
For the unofficial record: as always, the volunteers worked well over the 30-minute requirement and in total collected over 111,000 lbs of trash.
“Adding the World Record attempt this year was a fun, yet challenging, twist to our annual spring cleanup,” said Jennifer Bolger Breceda, Executive Director of Milwaukee Riverkeeper. “The logistics are significant every year, but adding in the extra layer of a world record attempt made it particularly challenging as we had to meet very specific requirements, recruit more volunteers, create a plan for verifying volunteer participation and submit the full scope in advance to Guinness World Records. It was worth it, though. Given that we build this incredible culture of water stewardship every year, this was a great way to honor all of our dedicated volunteers who give their time and effort every year and make this work a success. This award is theirs.”
Here are a few statistics from the event:
Of the 124 cleanup sites only 23 were officially adjudicated for the world record. These 23 sites had at least 2,082 attendees, shattering the previous record of 1,795 set on the Santa Catarina River in Mexico.
Milwaukee Riverkeeper reports that their internal records indicate that at least 4,923 volunteers worked at the 124 sites (the number includes general volunteers, Site Captains, and the extra observers needed for the record attempt).
Trash Weight: 111,452 lbs.
The innumerable strange things that were found during the cleanup included some that stood out: 39 tires, 11 construction barrels, 6 construction signs, 6 shopping carts, 5 fire extinguishers, 3 toilets, 2 mattresses, and 1 golf bag with clubs.
“It is really powerful to think about how big this event is and how it really represents what’s possible when people come together around a shared purpose,” said Bolger Breceda in a follow up email. “No single individual could achieve this scale of impact alone. But collectively, we were able to remove over 110,000 lbs of trash in just a few hours. Every year I am amazed to think about that—how much our community can do in only a couple of hours to improve our world. We hope that we can continue to build on that momentum and keep this community engagement going. Restoring and protecting our waterways for the next generation is the goal.”
Riverkeeper Cheryl Nenn adds this:
“It’s been amazing to see the growth of our spring cleanup over the last few decades. Thanks to over 4,900 amazing volunteers, we removed trash from our waterways, cleaned up our parks, restored natural spaces, and experienced the power of what our community can achieve in only a few hours. We even broke a Guinness World Record! We couldn’t do this work without our hardworking site captains or our many community partners that helped lead cleanups at over 100 sites throughout the Milwaukee River Basin—they are all our river heroes. We hope this event continues to inspire the community to help us care for our rivers all year long, and moves us closer to clean, fishable and swimmable waters!”
For more information about Milwaukee Riverkeeper and to find out about how you can help, go to their website.
The river cleanup in Milwaukee Magazine:
How Milwaukee Riverkeeper Broke a World Record
Related stories from The Natural Realm:
Photo essay: Milwaukee Riverkeeper Cleanups through the years!
Photo essay: Annual Milwaukee Riverkeeper Boat Parade rocks Milwaukee River
Milwaukee Riverkeeper Boat Parade!
Eddee Daniel, writer/photographer, is a former board member of Milwaukee Riverkeeper, current board member of Preserve Our Parks, the Project Director of A Wealth of Nature, and editor of The Natural Realm blog. All photos by Eddee Daniel except as noted.
The Natural Realm blog is part of A Wealth of Nature, which is a program of Preserve Our Parks. Milwaukee Riverkeeper is a project partner of A Wealth of Nature.
About Preserve Our Parks
Preserve Our Parks, Inc. is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of parks and green spaces. Our mission: To advocate for and promote Milwaukee area parks and open spaces and to strive to protect the tenets of Wisconsin’s Public Trust Doctrine.
For more than 25 years, we have been a leader in advocating for the protection of Milwaukee County park lands, halting many proposals to develop, privatize, or sell local parkland and lakefront spaces. More information about POP, including past accomplishments, is available at www.preserveourparks.org.