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 (2022)
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, urgent and faster 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 15th of June 2021 up until the 5th of June 2022.
This year’s dirty dozen were responsible for 70% of all branded pollution collected, an increase from 65% last year. Breaking this down further revealed that the top three most polluting companies were responsible for 38% of all branded pollution found, increasing again from 33% last year.
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.
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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…