Source to Sea Litter Survey

Letting balloons go and setting off sky lanterns may seem like a bit of harmless fun, but what happens when they float out of your sight and disappear from your thoughts? They land somewhere – either intact or in bits with their trailing strings and plastic ties.

Councils all around the UK got involved in our Don’t let go campaign and voted to ban outdoor balloon and sky lanterns releases.

During last year’s Great British Beach Clean we found an average of 30 drinks-related litter items, like plastic bottles or drinks cans, for every 100m of beach surveyed. These items were also found on 99% of inland cleans.

We’re campaigning for deposit return schemes across the UK. These schemes mean you pay a small deposit on these items when you buy them, then when you return it to be recycled, you get your money back.

In April 2024, all four nations committed to introducing Deposit Return Schemes by October 2027 for metal and plastic drinks containers.

There have already been major delays to the schemes’ introduction – and we need to keep up the pressure to make sure DRS becomes a reality in all four nations by the deadline in 2027.

We’ve used data collected in previous years to make the case for carrier bag charges across the UK. Wales introduced charges in 2011 followed by Scotland in 2014 and England in 2015.

We know policies like carrier bag charges work. Since their introduction across the UK, we’ve seen a 61% drop (2011-2021) in the number of plastic bags we’re finding on beaches. The more data we collect, the more policies we can push for to make beach and ocean pollution a thing of the past.

With 14 million single-use vapes sold each month in the UK, many are ending up littered on our streets where they pollute the environment, making their way into rivers and eventually, the ocean.

We know that disposable vapes are polluting our streets, parks, rivers and beaches. By taking part, you’re helping to gather data which acts as evidence to show just how much of a problem disposable vapes are for our environment.

Sometimes it’s hard to understand a single wet wipe can make such a big impact hundreds of miles away. But each year we find evidence of the impact of a single flush on our beaches and in our coastal waters. We found sewage-related items like wet wipes on 72% of UK beaches in 2023 and these are consistently found in the top 10 most common litter items on Scottish beaches.

Many wet wipes contain plastic fibres which break down into microplastics and become harmful to marine animals. The UK officially passed legislation banning the sale and supply of wet wipes containing plastic in England and will come into force in May 2027.