The top 10 items found at beach cleanups

Not just an ugly beach day

Femke Strietman
Nov 8 · 5 min read

More than 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into the oceans annually, polluting our world’s beloved beaches. This doesn’t just make for an ugly beach day, it is more seriously contaminating our food chain and adding to climate change.

There is a lot of trash floating around in our oceans (that shouldn’t be there)-so much that a giant trash vortex is currently hounding marine life in the Pacific Ocean. If you ever wondered what types of litter is washing up on our beaches, we can offer some insights.

Organiser of the annual International Coastal Cleanup, The Ocean Conservancy carefully monitors pollution and the state of our oceans. During their global beach cleanup event, volunteers from all over the world contribute data on the type of debris found. The data provides important information to scientists, environmental groups and governments to closely study the process of waste that gets dumped into the oceans.

So what are the top 10 items found at beach cleanups?

Infographic on the top 10 ocean polluters by Proof of Impact
Infographic on the top 10 ocean polluters by Proof of Impact

The breakdown

Cigarettes

Don’t let the small size fool you. This tiny monster makes its way through gutters and drains into the sea. Besides the plastic in filters, the toxins in cigarettes can kill animals and birds as they mistake the butts for food and accidentally ingest them. I won’t go there but… Another reason to stop smoking? (Yup, I totally went there).

Plastic food wrappers

Plastic film and wrappers are one of the most found litter items found at beach cleanups. It may keep your lunch fresh, but pollutes the planet.

Plastic bottles

The next offenders are plastic beverage bottles. Did you know that around 20,000 plastic bottles are sold every second? These bottles mostly end up in landfills, on the streets and in nature, from where wind and rain drags them to the waterways.

Bottle caps and plastic cap bands

With bottles come bottle caps, but they are in a league of their own. Besides easy to be broken down into micro plastics, the caps are small enough to be swallowed whole by animals such as birds, suffocating or hurting their intestines in the process.

Plastic bags

The danger of plastic bags in the ocean is higher than ever. These ‘silent killers’ can be mistaken for jellyfish by turtles and eaten. Furthermore, they do not biodegrade and sit on the seabed for ages, where corals and ecosystems get suffocated and damaged due to lack of oxygen.

Plastic food utensils: cutlery, plates and cups

A lot more prevalent that earlier suspected, over two million plastic utensils were found on the beaches during the International Coastal Cleanup this year. By taking the ‘Quit the Cutlery’ pledge, you can take action yourself to spread awareness about plastic pollution.

Straws and stirrers

These two notorious products often end up in landfills, which is a bad idea. Why? Because not only are they single use items, which is unsustainable in itself, they also weigh nothing and get easily blown into the oceans and waterways by the wind.

Takeout containers

Another horrible polluter is polystyrene, or sometimes called EPS. You know, the stuff that those white food takeout containers are made of? Regular exposure to styrene can affect the nervous system of humans. The chemicals and micro plastics that harm you are broken down when they end up in the oceans, contaminating our food and water supplies.

Photo by Brian Yurasits on Unsplash

Lids

Coffee cup lids are a total bummer. The typical ones are made of styrofoam, which is not a good mix with hot liquids (see previous point). These days, you’ll also find a lot of ‘biodegradable’ lids at coffee shops. Instead of decomposing or biodegrading as many claim, if not disposed of properly, these lids in fact break up into smaller and smaller pieces, eventually becoming micro plastics so small the human eye can no longer see.

Marine debris

Ropes, fishing nets, fishing lines, crates and baskets. All a hazard waiting to happen when it comes to fish, dolphins, whales and turtles. An estimated 30% of of the decline of fish populations is a result of discarded fishing equipment, according to ocean conservation organisation Sea Shepherd.

Plastic is not fantastic

As you can see, most of the top 10 items are made of or contain plastic. According to a study by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, if we do not stop using the amount of plastic we consume, by 2050 the number of plastic items will outweigh the number of fish.

So what do these insights mean for you and me? It hopefully influences the way we think about how we consume these products in our daily lives. Reducing the amount of plastic we use will force corporate businesses to change their production processes. For example, earlier this year mass producer Coca Cola (named the worst polluting brand for the second year running) broke ties with the Plastics Industry Association because of public pressure.


In the two minutes it took you to read this article, more than 60,000 pounds of plastic were dumped into our oceans.

Take action now and fight climate change by joining a beach cleanup near you and help fight climate change one piece of plastic at a time. Can’t join but do want to help? Proof of Impact proudly partnered up with ocean cleanup organisations such as #SeaTheBiggerPicture, Oceano Reddentes and Clean C. We will soon make it possible for you to fund units of ocean trash gathered and recycled with verifiable proof points, so you know exactly where, when and how your donation is spent.

Sign up for early access! In the meantime, stay tuned for updates on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

Femke Strietman

Written by

I write stuff for @proofofimpact.

Proof of Impact

Proof of Impact unites champions who fund impact and organisations who create impact. We empower all parties to see and feel the measurable, positive change they make on the world. Transactions on our marketplace are linked to unique verifiable impact missions.

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