Ocean Conservancy launches calculator linking beach cleanups to wildlife protection. Ocean Conservancy has launched a free online tool allowing beach cleanup volunteers to estimate how many marine animals they help protect. The Wildlife Impact Calculator draws on peer-reviewed research quantifying the lethal dose of macroplastics for seabirds, sea turtles and marine mammals.
Users enter the number of specific plastic items collected from a beach or waterway to see how many animal lives would have been at risk had those items been ingested. The tool covers more than 20 types of plastic pollution commonly found inside marine animals, including fishing debris, bottle caps, straws, bags and food wrappers. It is based on research published in November 2025 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which compiled nearly 50 years of necropsy data to model mortality risk from macroplastic ingestion across three taxonomic groups.
An estimated 11 million metric tonnes of plastic enters the ocean each year, with scientists documenting some 1,300 species that ingest plastics. Ocean Conservancy said the calculator does not capture the full threat, since macroplastic ingestion is one of several pathways of harm alongside entanglement, microplastic ingestion and chemical exposure.
