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Food and beverage plastics dominate global shorelines: A harmonized rank-based assessment of usage types to guide interventions
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Scientists analyzed over 5,300 beach cleanup surveys worldwide and found that food and drink packaging—things like wrappers, bottle caps, and plastic bottles—make up the majority of trash washing up on shorelines in nearly every country studied. This matters because as this plastic waste breaks down, it can become microplastics that enter our water, food, and eventually our bodies, so the findings point to specific everyday products that policymakers should target first to cut plastic pollution at its source.
Plastic pollution represents a pervasive global environmental challenge. However, the lack of globally harmonized monitoring hinders the development of targeted interventions. Here, we develop a rank-based approach combining over 5,300 shoreline surveys and Monte Carlo analysis to present a confidence-weighted global assessment of marine litter across seven continents, nine ocean systems, 13 regional seas, and 112 nations, representing 86% of the global population. The analysis shows that food and beverage plastics dominate shoreline debris globally, ranking among the top three most abundant usage types in 93% of nations, followed by plastic bags (39%) and cigarettes (38%). Specifically, plastic food packaging, caps/lids, and plastic bottles were among the top-ranked individual items in over half of all nations. By pinpointing the most prevalent items across national and regional scales, our framework provides critical policy-relevant evidence and associated levels of confidence, indicating the need for targeted upstream responses focused on short-lived plastics.
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