Grab your friends, colleagues or loved ones to enjoy an outing that also gives back. Plastic is taking the world by storm, and a new type of gathering is popping up across the planet. People are planning give back gatherings that effect change. The gist is to get your friends together and plan something as simple as a picnic. You provide the food, plastic-free party supplies and host your friends at the nearest beach or lake. Gather together to pick up trash and then have fun hanging out. When bringing people together IRL and putting our phones down, it's also the perfect opportunity to help clean up the beaches that are under attack from plastic and litter at alarming rates.

One of the biggest problems facing our oceans is microplastics: very small pieces of plastic that sea animals mistake for food, accidentally get caught in or involuntarily ingest. By 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. Currently, over 90% of seabirds have plastic in their stomach. With the 8 billion tons of plastic getting dumped in the ocean annually, it’s easy to see how the plastic problem is accelerating so rapidly. We’re diving into how to do your part to clean up, and enlist the help of your friends while you’re at it.