Great Lakes Great Responsibility

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Great Lakes Great Responsibility

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Cleaning up the Great Lakes basin
Current count: 827,959 pieces removed

10/21/2026

The Great Lakes Art Auction is BACK! From October 30–November 8, you’ll have the chance to bid on incredible, Great Lakes-inspired artwork while supporting our clean water mission.

Art is often undervalued and underappreciated, so we’re especially grateful to the artists who share their time and talent with us. Their work deserves to be celebrated, and we’re excited to shine a spotlight on each of our participating artists!

Over the coming days, we’ll be highlighting each artist and sharing more of their work. Keep an eye out, show them some love, and get ready to find a piece that speaks to you!

🎨 Meet our artists:

lakesideprintshop
ᗷᘿᑢᑢᗩ ✿
Brady Myers Art
Brian Stechschulte | Artist
Jarrod Napierkowski
Adele Webster | Contemporary Canadian Artist
Judith Brunko
Julie Sheil - Artist
Maria Tucker Jewelry
Mary Mullard
Meghan Bjork
Michael Glowacki
molly jackson / neighborhood glassworks
Nate Knoth
roselynnclay
Ryan Powers
Steven Coron
Ximou Song
Kurtis D Edwards
Tom Adolphs
Tammy Kik Parish

Every bid helps support Great Lakes, Great Responsibility’s work to prevent marine debris in the Great Lakes watershed. 🌊 🌏

10/19/2026

Join us on Wednesday, October 21, as Great Lakes Great Responsibility Executive Director Meag Schwartz joins fellow local leaders for a panel discussion at the Bridge Michigan Issues Summit, hosted at Alpena Community College.

Livestreamed from Detroit from 1–5:30 p.m., the summit will feature Bridge Michigan reporters in conversation with panelists about some of the most pressing issues facing Michiganders, including education, healthcare, housing, wages, affordability, and the environment. The livestream will be followed by a discussion featuring local leaders, including Meag.

Interested in tuning in? Register at the link in our bio!

10/15/2026

Sand dunes have healing properties… it’s science ✨

10/14/2026

Two countries. Two cleanup sites. One shared watershed. 🇺🇸🇨🇦🌊

At the One Water Gathering, we teamed up with our Canadian partners at Lake Huron Coastal Centre to compare and contrast the litter we find in our communities and the policies that help shape it. We cleaned up two locations:

🛒 Commercial area near Meijer: 501 pieces of trash removed in just 20 minutes.

🏖️ Starlite Beach on Lake Huron: 160 pieces of trash removed in 20 minutes.

The differences sparked an important conversation: how do our single-use plastic policies influence the waste that ends up in our waterways?

Canada has taken stronger action on certain single-use plastics, including checkout bags, cutlery, straws, and more. These policies can help reduce the amount of specific plastics entering the waste stream, and we have a lot to learn from our neighbors who share these waters.

Because marine debris doesn’t recognize borders. What happens on one side of the Great Lakes affects us all.

🇨🇦 What can we learn from Canada’s approach? 🇺🇸 And what would it take for the United States to step up?

Let’s stop treating litter as just a cleanup problem and start tackling it at the source. 📸: Huron Pines

10/14/2026

2,800+ pieces and 60 lbs of trash removed from Downtown Alpena with Wolverine State Credit Union yesterday!

The Wolverine team opted to incorporate some stewardship into their training day and put in the work, collecting trash AND data.

Thank you WSCU team for your effort and for your sponsorship of our work! 👏🏻 🪣 🧤 🌍

Trash removed from land helps prevent marine debris and keep our Great Lakes GREAT.

Interested in a corporate cleanup? Reach out: [email protected]

10/06/2026

Great Lakes Great Responsibility’s Executive Director Meag Schwartz joined Alpena Community College’s Environmental Science class as a guest speaker to explore the issue of marine debris in the Great Lakes.

After learning about the impacts of marine debris and the importance of prevention and removal, students took their learning into action with a campus cleanup, removing 837 pieces of trash from their campus!

Inspired by their actions? Join the movement to remove 1,000,000 pieces of trash from the Great Lakes watershed. It’s easy:

1. Pick up trash
2. Count your trash
3. Log your data: www.greatlakeslove.org

🧤🪣🌍🩵🙏🏻

10/06/2026

Lake Huron, seen from the top of the Tawas Point Lighthouse

10/05/2026

Picture perfect day at Tawas Point Lighthouse with spectacular water hues and a hint of autumn color on the trees.

Have you visited before? This year is the 150th anniversary of the lighthouse being built. Truly a special piece of Great Lakes maritime history.

10/05/2026

What do the Great Lakes mean to YOU? 🌊

This year, we traveled across the Great Lakes Basin asking people a simple question: What do the Great Lakes mean to you?

The answers were as diverse as the people and places we encountered, yet beneath the surface, we heard familiar threads.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing some of these voices from across the Basin. Today we hear from MB Kelley Lowe, a Traverse City, Michigan resident.

And we want to hear yours.

When you think about the Great Lakes, what comes to mind? What have they given you? What do they ask of you in return?

Tell us below. 🌎🩵

10/01/2026

Refill stores deserve more hype. 🧴🌎

They make it easier to ditch unnecessary packaging and keep single-use plastics out of our Great Lakes.

That’s why we’re proud to partner with dip premium hair care to support refill culture and bring you our Great Lakes Apple Blossom shampoo + conditioner bars. It’s plastic-free luxury hair care that supports our clean water mission. 🌸 🌊

More refills = less plastic = Healthier Great Lakes.

🎥 Refill store footage filmed at The Refillery Traverse City in Traverse City, Michigan.

Non-AI generated content 🤭

Address

Marquette, MI
49855

Website

https://www.greatlakeslove.org/, https://www.greatlakeslove.org/greatlakesart

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