While many of us do our best to reduce our plastic consumption, figures show that British households collectively throw away almost 100 billion pieces of plastic every year.
Now, new data has revealed the ‘Dirty Dozen’ brands responsible for the vast majority (70 per cent) of branded plastic and packaging pollution in the UK.
The researchers found that The Coca-Cola Company tops the list as Britain’s worst plastic and packaging polluter, followed by McDonald’s and PepsiCo.
“The results of this year’s brand audit are shocking, but sadly not surprising,” said Izzy Ross, campaign manager for Surfers Against Sewage.
“Year after year, we see the same culprits behind the disgusting amounts of plastic pollution on our beaches, cities and countryside.”
New data has revealed the ‘Dirty Dozen’ brands responsible for the vast majority (70 per cent) of branded plastic and packaging pollution in the UK.
Researchers from Surfers Against Sewage found that Coca-Cola tops the list as Britain’s worst plastic and packaging polluter, followed by McDonald’s and PepsiCo.
For their analysis, the team enlisted the help of 4,240 volunteers, who collected items in 500 beach, river, forest and street cleanups.
In total, volunteers collected 30,745 individual items between June 6, 2022, and June 5, 2023.
An analysis of this junk revealed that 36 percent came from just 327 brands.
The Coca-Cola Company, which owns several popular brands including Monster, Coca-Cola and Costa, topped the list as the worst polluter, with 1,820 items collected.
It was followed by McDonald’s, which was responsible for 1,220 items, and PepsiCo, whose brands include 7Up, Pepsi and Walkers and made up 976 of the items.
Rounding out the ‘Dirty Dozen’ were Mondelez International (home to brands like Cadbury, Maynard’s Bassetts, Philadelphia and Ritz), AB InBev (whose brands include Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois), Tesco, Haribo, Nestlé, Mars, Heineken, Carlsberg and Red Bull.
“This Dirty Dozen plastic polluting companies need to clean up their act,” Ms Ross said.
They must be held accountable for their pollution and encouraged to do more to embrace circular business models to reduce their plastic and (by extension) carbon footprint.
The Coca-Cola Company, which owns several popular brands including Monster, Coca-Cola and Costa, topped the list as the worst polluter, with 1,820 items collected.
PepsiCo, whose brands include 7Up, Pepsi and Walkers, made up 976 of the items collected by the volunteers.
These industry giants have the power to save or damn our ocean. At the moment they are choosing the latter.
Aside from branded items, items from the fishing industry were found to be a major source of plastic waste, with lines, nets and ropes found to account for 11 per cent of items collected.
Other common items included cigarette butts and e-cigarettes, with 131 items registered in this category.
Based on the findings, Surfers Against Sewage is calling on corporations to reduce their plastic packaging and take responsibility for the entire life cycle of their products.
In addition, the team suggests that an ‘all-in’ deposit return scheme (DRS) for all beverage packaging could help reduce plastic pollution in Britain.
“A deposit return scheme is one of the most effective ways to reduce plastic pollution,” said Ms Ross.
‘DRS schemes have been shown to be very successful in other countries, and there is no reason to assume that this would not be the case in the UK.
‘Unfortunately, the government continues to stall plans to implement a DRS.
“By doing so, you are condemning our oceans, beaches and rivers to an additional 8 billion pieces of plastic a year, as plastic gradually chokes these fragile ecosystems to death.”
Speaking to MailOnline, a Coca-Cola spokesperson said: “It is clear that the world is facing a packaging waste problem and we have a responsibility to help solve it.
“At Coca-Cola, we continue to work with our partners to encourage more recycling, while actively supporting various initiatives aimed at making litter a thing of the past.”
In addition to branded items, items from the fishing industry were found to be a major source of plastic waste, with lines, nets and ropes found to account for 11 per cent of items collected.
In total, volunteers collected 30,745 individual items between June 6, 2022 and June 5, 2023.
A Nestle spokesperson added that the results were “not entirely pretty to see.”
“While the results are not a surprise to us, they are not pretty to see and we are aware of the scale,” they told MailOnline.
“We make some of the world’s best-known food and beverage brands and many of them are packaged in plastic for safety, freshness and affordability.
“However, it is completely unacceptable that such packaging ends up as litter in the natural environment, endangers wildlife, and threatens ecosystems and the food chain.
“In the UK and Ireland, our efforts continue to ensure that almost 100% of our packaging is designed for recycling by 2025, and we continue to work to make all our packaging recyclable or reusable.”
A PepsiCo spokesperson said: “We recognize that litter on our beaches is a big problem, and we know we have an important role to play in helping to address this challenge,” while a McDonald’s spokesperson added: “As a company, we continue to make changes to our packaging to reduce plastic waste and have already made a number of moves in this area.”
MailOnline has contacted the other brands listed for comment.
Eight million tons of plastic ends up in the ocean every year.
Of the 30 billion plastic bottles used by UK households each year, only 57 per cent are currently recycled.
With half of these going to landfill, half of all plastic bottles that are recycled go to waste.
Some 700,000 plastic bottles a day end up in the trash.
This is largely due to the plastic packaging on the bottles which is not recyclable.
Bottles are one of the main contributors to the growing amount of plastic waste in the world’s oceans.
The researchers warned that eight million tons of plastic reaches the ocean each year, the equivalent of one truckload per minute.
The amount of plastic trash in the world’s oceans will exceed that of fish by 2050 unless the world takes drastic steps to recycle even more, a report published in 2016 revealed.
At current rates, this will worsen to four trucks per minute by 2050 and will overtake native life to become the largest mass inhabiting the oceans.
An overwhelming 95 per cent of plastic packaging, worth £65 – £92 billion, is lost to the economy after just one use, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation report.
And available research estimates that there are more than 150 million tons of plastic in the ocean today.
Plastic pollution is ruining the world’s ecosystems, both marine and terrestrial. It litters shorelines, traps animals, and suffocates entire populations of animals.
So much plastic is dumped into the sea each year that it would fill five plastic bags for every foot of the planet’s coastline, scientists have warned.
More than half of the plastic waste that flows into the oceans comes from just five countries: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka.
The only industrialized western country on the list of the top 20 plastic polluters is the United States at number 20.
The United States and Europe are not mismanaging their collected waste, so the plastic trash coming from those countries is due to litter, the researchers said.
While China is responsible for 2.4 million tons of plastic that reaches the ocean, almost 28 percent of the world total, the United States contributes only 77,000 tons, which is less than one percent, according to the study published in the journal Science.
