About 500 people are signed up for the fifth annual Olympic Coast Cleanup on Saturday.
“That’s a big gang of folks, the most we’ve ever had,” said Jan Klippert, the Seattle resident who started the event.
The volunteers will comb Pacific Ocean beaches from Kalaloch in Olympic National Park in western Jefferson County to Hobuck Beach on the Makah reservation on Clallam County’s northwest coast.
Klippert said volunteers will clean up First Beach for the first time.
The area from Ocean Shores to Moclips in Grays Harbor County also was added for this year, he said.
“We’ve got just a nice group of folks. We’re helping out with the Makahs again. There’s a tour of the tribal museum and lunch offered by Vince Cook,” Klippert said.
The Surfrider Foundation and YMCA Explorer Club from Port Angeles are helping with registration of volunteers at the Three Rivers Campground.
Volunteers help with a wide range of tasks — from picking up trash at popular day-use beaches to carrying filled trash bags to parking lots.
More than 40 tons of debris have been removed from the beaches from past cleanup efforts, Klippert said.