Plastic pollution
A plastic tide has swept across the globe and is choking the ocean. It's time to hold the polluters to account.
Brand Audit Report (2023)
Who are the #DirtyDozen fuelling the plastic pollution crisis and filling the ocean with their single-use packaging?⠀
The plastic and packaging pollution crisis still needs ambitious, creative and urgent action.
The following report analyses the data for items collected at hundreds of locations across the UK, by volunteers on behalf of Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) during the Million Mile Clean. The Million Mile Clean runs year-round, supporting a mass brand audit data collection as part of SAS’s programme of citizen science research. This year’s data was recorded between the 6th of June 2022 up until the 5th of June 2023.
This year’s dirty dozen were responsible for 70% of all branded pollution collected, citizen scientists collected 30,745 individual polluting items, 36% (10,951) of which were branded.
Our findings highlight the systemic problem the UK faces with plastic and packaging pollution. Brands, wider businesses and the government are still not doing enough to reduce packaging, switch to reuse models and enable recycling.
Go deeper
Register a clean
From large community cleans to individual action, we’ve got you covered. Find out how easy it is to set up your clean from scratch, register it with us, and get hold of your free equipment to make your clean a success. Please note that the last day to request equipment this year will be Wednesday…
Deposit Return Scheme
The ocean is drowning in Plastic Pollution. We demand an all-in Deposit Return Scheme to help turn off the plastic tap. In the UK, we use 38.5 million plastic bottles every day. We struggle to recycle even half of those. This contributes to the staggering 8 billion containers that are washed into the ocean every…