Beach with a view of plastic. New study reveals what is really polluting the world’s coastlines

The world’s first global review of marine litter has revealed that coastlines in 93 percent of countries are polluted by plastic food and beverage packaging. According to scientists, reducing littering alone is not enough – cutting the production and use of these materials is now an absolute environmental priority.

The world’s largest study of beach litter

Published on May 20 in the journal One Earth, the findings summarize data collected from 112 countries bordering 13 seas and 9 ocean systems – together home to 86 percent of the global population. Scientists gathered more than 5,000 surveys documenting the composition of waste found on coastlines and subjected the data to a detailed analysis based on the Monte Carlo methodology.

The aim of the study was to verify the sources of waste polluting the natural environment – according to previous estimates, up to 20 million tonnes of plastic waste end up outside landfills every year. According to Richard Thompson, founder of the International Marine Litter Research Unit at the University of Plymouth and lead author of the study, the findings are intended to help industry and policymakers better target efforts to reduce the problem of plastic pollution in nature.

Coastlines polluted by our carelessness

The study found that food packaging is the dominant type of litter on beaches – it ranked among the three most commonly found waste categories in 53 percent of the 112 countries analyzed. Bottle caps, lids, and plastic bottles followed closely behind, appearing among the top three categories in 51 percent of countries. Altogether, in more than 90 percent of the analyzed nations, the main problem involved waste linked to food and beverage consumption.

Also ranking high in the shameful list of waste found along coastlines were plastic bags (40 percent of countries), cigarette butts (38 percent), and fishing-related equipment (34 percent).

Regional analyses highlight how widespread the problem has become – food packaging was among the three most common types of waste even in the Arctic Ocean. Scientists attribute this to the presence of small, isolated communities with limited access to waste management systems. Europe recorded the world’s highest pollution from cigarette butts, Asia from plastic bags, while coastlines along the Southern Ocean were dominated by waste related to shipping and fishing.

The only solution is to produce less

According to analyses by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, by 2060 the total amount of plastic accumulated in the oceans could reach 145 million metric tonnes. Plastic waste disrupts ecological processes, harms wildlife, and poses a threat to human health. The financial costs associated with it place a disproportionately heavy burden on the world’s poorest countries.

The authors of the study emphasize that waste management alone cannot solve this global problem – action is also needed on the production side, including a consistent reduction in the supply of plastics. The way we package food and beverages must change, and it must change as quickly as possible.

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main photo: Sebastian Latorre/Unsplash

Source:

Kelly M, Cordova M, Jobling S et al., Food and beverage plastics dominate global shorelines: A harmonized rank-based assessment of usage types to guide interventions, One Earth, 2026; doi: 10.1016/j.oneear.2026.101712