‘Dirty dozen’ firms flooding UK beaches with plastic waste named amid anger over water pollution

Waste from Coca-Cola, Pepsi and McDonalds accounts for almost 40 per cent of all branded pollution around the British coastline

Amid a wave of anger at water companies and the government over sewage and other pollutants entering the UK’s deteriorating watercourses, new research has revealed the scale of the plastic waste entering the sea around Britain.

Almost 4,000 citizen science volunteers across the UK collected branded items over 13,000 miles over the last 12 months to expose the top 12 polluting companies.

The volunteers found almost 30,000 pieces of plastic waste around the coast, a third of which was branded, and linked to over 250 different companies.

However, the research found the top three polluters, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and McDonald’s are responsible for producing a staggering 39 per cent of all branded pollution found.

It is the third year in a row that Coca-Cola has taken the number one position, the research commissioned by campaign group Surfers Against Sewage reveals.

"Together the worst offenders are producing staggering quantities of plastic," Hugo Tagholm, the chief executive of Surfers Against Sewage told The Independent.

"Despite some of their rhetoric about cuts [to plastic waste], the scale of their markets means they keep growing the businesses, which means they keep growing their plastic footprint.

"This is evident on beaches and in the environment around the UK and around the world."

He added: "Coca-Cola taking the top spot for the third year in a row shows that despite the ‘Blue Planet effect’ in 2017, and all of the focus on this, we still haven’t got the plastic pollution crisis under control.

The "Dirty Dozen" worst plastic polluters on UK beaches 2022 are:

1. Coca-Cola

2. PepsiCo

3. McDonalds

4. Anheuser-Busch InBev

5. Mondelez International

6. Nestlé

7. Tesco

8. Red Bull GmbH

9. Suntory

10. Carlsberg Group

11. Heineken Holding

12. Mars

To highlight the rampant pollution blighting the environment and ocean, Surfers Against Sewage commissioned a 100m x 400m projection of packaging waste stacked up against the White Cliffs of Dover.

A huge projection onto the White Cliffs of Dover of litter from the companies which make the single-use plastic found littering beaches around the UK (Surfers Against Sewage)

The organisation is calling for an "all-in" deposit return scheme, which would see consumers pay an up-front deposit on products, redeemed when the plastic container is returned. Deposit return schemes are already used effectively across Europe and receiving high return rates.

Mr Tagholm said "we still haven’t shifted to the right materials and we still don’t have a deposit return scheme".

"We’ve been crying out for an all-in deposit return scheme. Incidentally, that alone would save about 55 per cent of all the plastic we found through the audit, because a lot of it is plastic drinks bottles and containers. Just one really well-designed bit of circular economy intervention that captures plastic and contains it in the economy rather than on our beaches can have a massive dramatic effect. The government must move fast on this."

The audit found that tobacco products accounted for over 15 per cent of all pollution recorded and over a quarter of all unbranded pollution recorded was cigarette butts.

Cigarette pollution is extremely detrimental to the soil and beaches, with the vast majority of butts made from single-use plastic and containing hundreds of toxic chemicals once smoked, the report warned.

Dr Christian Dunn, senior lecturer in natural sciences at Bangor University, said: "This research shows the environmental disaster of plastic pollution shows no sign of slowing down, as yet again the same companies are responsible for the bulk of the waste being found on our beaches and streets.

"It’s rather depressing that despite all the evidence over the years being provided by SAS and its fantastic team of citizen scientists these companies still aren’t getting a grip on the issue. "There needs to be a shared responsibility between everyone; the government, producers and consumers if we’re to seriously tackle the problem."

A spokesperson for Coca-Cola said: “We share the goal of eliminating plastic waste from the environment and acknowledge that The Coca-Cola Company has a responsibility to help solve this issue.

“That was the driving force in establishing our ‘world without waste’ goals, and while we continue to make progress against these targets, we are challenging ourselves to do more.

“Today, all of our packaging is 100 per cent recyclable, and our aim is to get more of it back so that it can be recycled and turned into new packaging again.

“It’s disappointing to see any packaging being littered and that’s why we fully support the introduction of a well-designed deposit return scheme, which we know from results in other countries will encourage people to recycle, rather than litter or throw away.”

A spokesperson for McDonald’s said: “Over 90 per cent of the packaging we use comes from recycled or renewable sources, and can be recycled.

“As a business, we have committed to sourcing all of our packaging from renewable and recyclable materials by 2025.

“We remain committed to finding innovative ways to tackle the issue of packaging waste and are trialling a number of initiatives to help reduce littering.”

The spokesperson said that earlier this year, the company had a campaign to lead litter picks in local areas, which also called on customers to do their bit by not littering in the first place.

A spokesperson for PepsiCo UK told The Independent: “Protecting the planet is really important to us and we share people’s concerns about litter. It’s why we’ve been supporting the Great British Spring Clean for the past four years and all of our packaging is labelled with messaging encouraging the responsible disposal and, wherever possible, the recycling of packaging.”

“Our vision is to build a world where packaging never becomes waste, as we set out in our strategic transformation plan, PepsiCo Positive. We are committed to reducing the plastic we use across our entire portfolio – for example, earlier this year, we announced plans to eliminate virgin fossil-based plastic in all crisp and snack bags, delivered by using 100 per cent recycled or renewable content in all packets by 2030. We also believe that deposit return schemes can provide a critical source of high quality, clean recyclate which is why we continue to be supportive of well-designed schemes.”

Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company (CMBC), told The Independent: “CMBC, as part of Carlsberg Group, takes sustainability very seriously and we are adamant our products should never end up in nature.

“To prevent waste, we have just launched our new Together Towards Zero and Beyond ESG programme, committing us to new and improved sustainability targets. This includes a new ambition to achieve zero packaging waste, with concrete targets to achieve a 90 per cent recycling rate on our bottles and cans and make 100 per cent of our packaging recyclable, reusable or renewable by 2030.

“CMBC is hard at work preparing to support Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme when this begins in 2023 and which we expect will be seen across the UK in the future. This move will be critical to achieving our ambitions.

“We have taken positive action to reduce plastic waste through innovations such as our Snap Pack packaging. Snap Pack reduces our use of secondary plastic packaging by up to 76 per cent compared to our previous format, and subsequently reduces the risk of plastic ending up in nature.”

Additional reporting by agencies.