By Klarissa Olvera

The Big Muddy Clean Sweep is back for Missouri River Relief’s 25th anniversary, and volunteer registration is now open!

From August through September, staff with Missouri River Relief will travel the Missouri River by boat from Kansas City to Columbia, partnering with communities along the way to remove trash from the river and its banks.

This is a 7 week-long effort that moves downstream town by town, combining staff-led cleanups with community cleanup days. Each stop brings people onto the river to care for their local stretch and see stewardship in action firsthand.

You can join the effort by volunteering at one of the 2026 events below:

• Saturday, Aug. 15 – La Benite Park in Sugar Creek

• Saturday, Aug. 22 – Lexington Access

• Wednesday, Aug. 26 – Waverly Access

• Sunday, Aug. 30 – Miami Access • Thursday, Sept. 3 – Dalton Bottoms Access

• Saturday, Sept. 12 – Stump Island Park in Glasgow

• Saturday, Sept. 19 – Franklin Island Boat Ramp in Boonville

• No river experience is needed to volunteer! Missouri River Relief will provide everything you need to participate including boats, life jackets and cleanup supplies, as well as staff to guide volunteers throughout the day. All you need to bring is a willingness to get a little dirty. Registration for these clean up events opened June 12. Each cleanup location has a limited number of spaces. Please register online at https://riverrelief.org/events/big-muddy-cleansweep-2026/.

Registered volunteers will meet with the Missouri River Relief team at the designated river access for orientation and a safety meeting. They will receive life jackets and clean up supplies and be assigned to boats in small teams. Volunteers are then ferried to pre-scouted locations along the river to remove trash from areas not typically accessible by land. After a full morning of work, volunteers are returned to their river access. With the exception of Glasgow, the 2026 clean-ups are smaller scale and will not include lunch or activities in the afternoon.

Additionally, this year Missouri River Relief will be partnering with the Missouri River Bird Observatory to host brand audits. A brand audit is an initiative that involves counting and documenting the brands found on plastic waste to help identify the companies contributing to plastic pollution. The data gathered from these brand audits are accumulated into a larger report by Break Free from Plastic to identify the world’s top polluting corporations to help advocate for massive reductions in single-use plastics.

Two 2026 brand audits are scheduled as follows:

• Aug. 30 – Miami

• Sept. 12 – Stump Island Park in Glasgow

These two events will require a separate sign up. Please visit https://riverrelief.org/events/ big-muddy-clean-sweep-2026/ to register for these brand audits.