The Love Our Waterways anti-litter program launches this month

For anyone stirred by the sight of a pelican’s beak snarled by fishing lines or turtles sunning near fast food trash, a new cleanup campaign helps channel your anti-litter energy. Organized by Keep Louisiana Beautiful, Love Our Waterways is organizing teams of volunteers to pick up litter in and around the state’s 14,400 miles of waterways throughout September.

The project builds on the success of a similar annual program, Love the Boot Week, in which volunteers pick up trash close to home. The weeklong April event saw 566 tons of litter retrieved around the state. For Love Our Waterways, volunteers will focus on removing litter and debris specifically from the state’s rivers, lakes, bayous, beaches and shorelines. Capital Region volunteers might decide to remove trash in the Mississippi, Atchafalaya, False, Amite or Comite rivers, or work in Bayou Manchac, Thompson Creek or the Capitol, LSU or City Park lakes. About 125 groups had registered through the program’s portal by the end of July.

There’s a good reason for focusing on water, says Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, whose office includes Keep Louisiana Beautiful.

“Eighty percent of litter on land ends up in our waterways,” Nungesser says. “I wanted to get our boaters more involved, our charter fishermen, our oystermen and shrimpers, and also make everyone aware that the stuff you throw out the window can end up in our waterways.”

Louisiana spends about $91 million annually on litter cleanup, according to a 2023 Keep Louisiana Beautiful study. The cost, largely absorbed by local governments, has risen 65% since 2010. Now in his third term, Nungesser has made litter remediation a priority, contacting states that have successfully reduced litter and hiring a national consultant to develop new strategies. Along with statewide cleanups, he created a mechanism for reporting litterers this year and is also pushing for private donors to fund cleanups along highways. He and his wife are sponsoring a four-mile section near his Covington home, Nungesser says.

Love Our Waterways groups will walk shorelines or use paddle or motorized boats to reach marine litter. They’re asked to track the kinds of litter they find, which could include derelict crab traps, abandoned watercraft and appliances. Larger items will be removed later by other agencies.

The inaugural Love Our Waterways program is taking place in September to coincide with World Cleanup Day and the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup Month. Litter is a complex, global problem, Nungesser says.

“You’ve got to attack it from every angle,” he says. “I think this will bring new attention to Sportsman’s Paradise, and how beautiful our lakes, rivers and coastline are.”

This article was originally published in the September 2026 issue of 225 Magazine.