65,629 Pounds: The United By Blue 2025 Impact Report

In 2025 we pulled 65,629 pounds of trash out of American waterways. That took 14 cleanups across seven states, 2,910 volunteers, and 20 nonprofit partners who know their own watersheds far better than we ever will.

The promise hasn't changed since we sold our first T-shirt in 2010: every product sold removes one pound of trash from oceans and waterways. Our 2025 Impact Report is the accounting of that promise — where we went, who we worked with, what we hauled out, and where we still have work to do.

Read the full 2025 Impact Report (PDF) →

2025 by the numbers

We nearly doubled both the number of cleanups we hosted and the amount of trash we collected compared to the year before. Lifetime, that puts us past 5.3 million pounds removed and more than 21,000 volunteers since 2010.

Asheville: 4,017 pounds of hurricane debris

We started the year in western North Carolina. Four months after Hurricane Helene, the French Broad River was still choked with train cars, PVC pipe, and pieces of destroyed homes. Sixty-five volunteers drove up to four hours to meet us at Walnut Island River Park, many of them from the B Corp community.

Together we removed 4,017 pounds of debris. When federal help was thin, people showed up with trucks and gloves. Read the Asheville recap →

Tacony Creek Park: the biggest cleanup in our history

Once a year we take on a high-yield site — somewhere hit hard by illegal dumping, where the debris runs past 40,000 pounds and the job needs months of planning. In 2025 that site was Tacony Creek Park in North Philadelphia, a 300-acre park and the only publicly accessible stretch of Tacony Creek in the city.

We first heard about the dumpsite in November 2024. Nine organizations scouted a pile of more than 4,000 tires and we waited for the weather to turn. On a cold, rainy April morning, 250 volunteers showed up at Adams Avenue. Half worked brush and litter on the surrounding streets; the other 150 formed two human chains and rolled tires up a muddy hill to a compactor. We removed 49,626 pounds in a single day — the largest cleanup in our fifteen-year history. The Mayor came out for it.

We came back the next morning at Whitaker Gateway and pulled another 1,342 pounds, including a car engine. Across the weekend that's 50,968 pounds and 292 volunteers.

Then we did the part that matters more: we worked with Philadelphia Parks and Recreation, the Water Department, the Sanitation Department, the Office of Clean and Green, TTF Watershed Partnership, and the Philadelphia Canoe Club to install barriers so the site can't be dumped on again. Neighbors are back in the park, walking and fishing. Read the Philadelphia recap →

Every cleanup we ran in 2025

We kept our B Corp certification — and raised our score

This spring we recertified as a B Corp, and scored higher than we did in 2021. Recertifying through a change of ownership was the thing we were most nervous about this year, and clearing it says the current owners are held to the same standard the company was built on.

What moved the score: banking with a B Corp bank that keeps our money out of fossil fuels, formal policies and reporting around employee volunteer hours, better health benefits for our team, and continuing to point the one-for-one model at communities that need it most. See our certifications →

Re:United by Blue: gear that doesn't end up in a landfill

This fall we launched Re:United by Blue, a resale platform where you can sell preloved UBB gear and buy someone else's. Returns, overstock, and rare pieces from the old days all live there. Trade something in and you get a gift card toward your next purchase — and we get a guarantee that the product finds another owner instead of a dumpster.

Where the money went

Cleanups are only part of it. In 2025 we gave directly to organizations working on waterway conservation, plastic pollution, and community resilience — including communities hit by fire and flood:

• National Marine Sanctuary Foundation
• Heal the Bay
• BeLoved Asheville
• MountainTrue

We also launched two T-shirt collaborations, with Heal the Bay and the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, that fund their work directly.

What we're still working on

2025 was not a smooth year. Tariffs, funding cuts, and delays getting new product made us plan tighter and improvise more than we'd like. And there's no perfect answer in this work — every material, every shipping route, every cleanup strategy is a trade-off. We use recycled, organic, and regenerative fibers, and CiCLO-treated recycled plastics that break down instead of shedding microplastics, and we still know we're not where we want to be on plastics. See how we choose materials →

The goal every year is the same: get closer. Less reliance on plastic, more pounds out of the water, more communities better off than when we showed up.

Read the report

The full report covers all 14 cleanups, our nonprofit and corporate partners, material certifications, charitable giving, and our B Corp results in detail.

Download the 2025 Impact Report (PDF) →

Want to be in next year's numbers? Find a cleanup near you or read more about our mission.