A group of 633 divers entered the waters near the Deerfield Beach International Fishing Pier, Florida, to clean up debris and trash from the ocean floor.
The divers set the 2019 participation record for an underwater cleanup. The milestone was verified by the Guinness World Records organization, that had staff on the scene to count the divers.
Michael Empric, an adjudicator for Guinness, said that he counted off every single diver that entered the water for over fifteen minutes. Divers came from all across the world to participate in this event.
The previous world record was set in 2015 by a team of 615 divers in the Red Sea, that were led by Ahmed Gabr, a former Egyptian Army scuba diver.
The divers in Florida managed to recover at least 1,626 pounds of trash and 60 pounds of fishing line. Tyler Bourgoine, though, one of the divers that participated in the cleanup, explained that this number is likely to rise as crews work to weigh all of the debris which was collected.
The ocean conservation team Project AWARE estimates that as much as 3,200 pounds of garbage could’ve been picked up in the effort.
Participation and debris removed measure different achievements
The record described here concerned the number of divers taking part in an underwater cleanup. It should not be confused with a verified world record for the greatest weight of rubbish removed. The 2019 report also makes clear that debris totals were still being calculated, which explains why preliminary numbers and estimates differ. Keeping those measures separate allows the event to be celebrated for its organized participation without making a stronger claim than the evidence supports. PADI AWARE’s Dive Against Debris program.
A cleanup can also produce information about recurring pollution
PADI AWARE’s Dive Against Debris program combines underwater debris removal with reporting what divers find. That approach makes the record after a cleanup useful as well as the immediate improvement to a site. Recording item types, quantities and location can help reveal whether fishing gear, packaging or other material repeatedly accumulates in the same area. For readers following the Deerfield Beach effort, useful questions extend beyond the headline turnout: how was collected material sorted, how were final totals recorded and what happened to it after removal? The 2019 event remains a community-action story, while systematic reporting and later comparisons can help connect individual dives with longer-term prevention.
About the event
The clean-up took place on 15 June 2019 as part of that year’s Save Deerfield Beach event, organised by the PADI dive centre Dixie Divers with the support of Project AWARE and PADI. The Guinness adjudicator Michael Empric carried out the official headcount between 9 and 11 a.m. Divers reported more than 9,000 pieces of marine debris to Project AWARE, and the survey data were to be quality-checked before being added to the global Dive Against Debris map; by then more than 50,000 divers from 114 countries had taken part in that programme. Scuba Diving magazine reported that the haul included 3,200 lb of fishing gear.
Sources: Scuba Diving, 28 June 2019: Record-breaking ocean clean-up Hydro International: World record for largest underwater cleanup
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