The National Marine Sanctuary Foundation (NMSF) is a nationwide organization that conserves and protects 18 different National Marine Sanctuaries totalling over 629,000 sq miles of ocean and Great Lakes waters. Sanctuary habitats include beautiful coral reefs, lush kelp forests, whale migrations corridors, spectacular deep-sea canyons, and underwater archaeological sites like shipwrecks.

Goal: Clean Seas Florida Keys is a partnership between the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation and Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. This program aims to remove underwater marine debris from marine sanctuary waters and educate the public about its role in marine debris prevention. Within the Florida Keys, Goal: Clean Seas dive operators are equipped to retrieve hard-to-find and hard-to-reach marine debris. Divers conduct removals in waters up to 130 feet deep using SCUBA equipment and lift bags. This method allows for the extraction of traps that have lost their buoys and cannot be retrieved from the surface. Since 2018, 22 partnered Goal: Clean Seas dive shops have removed 120,000 pounds of marine debris from the reefs of Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

As a project partner of the National TRAP Program, Goal: Clean Seas dive operators retrieve derelict traps everywhere within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (4,539 square miles!), targeting traps several miles offshore. Spiny lobster cages are the most common type recovered, though the Goal: Clean Seas dive operators are no stranger to the occasional stone crab or even blue crab trap. The traps that Goal: Clean Seas dive operators target often become derelict as a result of passing tropical storms, which are known to sweep traps miles away from where they were initially set. Their innovative diving technique allows the crew to retrieve these traps even if they have been swept into particularly deep waters or have been disconnected from their buoy.

During an average retrieval day, Goal: Clean Seas dive operators will gather a scuba crew consisting of staff and recreational divers to head out to sea with target trap coordinates in mind. Once traps have been found, divers (in teams of at least two) tie lift bags to the cage structure and then carefully bring it to the surface, where crew members can hoist the trap onto their boat. Traps are lifted directly to the surface one at a time, which takes extra effort but is least destructive for fragile corals and other seafloor habitat. As of August 2025, Goal: Clean Seas dive operators crew has retrieved 282 traps, with a few more trips to complete by the end of the grant in October 2025.

Community engagement is at the core of the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation’s mission, and the Goal:Clean Seas team has taken strides to emphasize the Keys community in all aspects of their trap retrievals. By including recreational divers as a part of their “voluntourism” initiative on the retrieval team, this program is able to connect to the public in a tangible, hands-on way. The team also collaborates with local artists to repurpose retrieved traps into works of recycled art, which are then used in advocacy efforts in the greater world of marine debris removal.