Food packaging is the most common form of beach trash for the first time, according to a recently published analysis of litter collected during the Ocean Conservancy’s 2019 International Coastal Cleanup. Cigarette butts topped the list for the last 33 years.
More than 940,000 volunteers collected upwards of 20.8 million tons of trash from beaches in 116 countries during the 2019 cleanup, which spanned every continent except Antarctica. Participants collected about 32.5 million items in a single day, including 4.2 million cigarette butts and 4.7 million individual food wrappers, such a chip bags.
The Ocean Conservancy’s 2019 International Coastal Cleanup statistics
The Ocean Conservancy
All of the top 10 most commonly found items are plastic. (Cigarette butts contain plastic fiber filters). In addition to wrappers, many of the top items related to food and drink, including: bottles and bottle caps, straws and stirrers, cups, lids, takeout containers and plastic bags.
Nicholas Mallos, senior director of the Ocean Conservancy’s Trash Free Seas program, tells Fast Company that food wrappers present a unique challenge for consumers.
“We can recycle plastic bottles, we can bring our own bags to the supermarket, and many of us skip the plastic straw altogether,” he says, “but when it comes to keeping food fresh, safe and accessible, to date manufacturers have put most of their research and energy into the food wrapper [in its] disposable plastic form. We really need to think about accelerating research and development of packaging that isn’t destined for landfills and that keeps both people and our oceans safe and healthy.”
Every piece of trash collected during these annual cleanups – more than 400 million items — has been cataloged since 1986, constituting what is considered the largest database of marine debris sorted by type. This multi-decade database allows researchers to track trends in consumer behavior, such as the decline of beverage cans after bottled water became popular. 2017 marked the first year plastic filled every spot in the top ten.
“The Ocean Conservancy’s dataset is such an important snapshot in time on plastic pollution for everyone concerned about this issue around the world,” Jenna Jambeck, a University of Georgia engineering professor and a National Geographic Fellow, told National Geographic. “I have been referencing the data since I began researching this topic 19 years ago.”
Food packaging’s new top billing can be credited to a both a decrease in smoking worldwide and an increased reliance on single-use plastics. In the 2018 International Coastal Cleanup, there were 5.7 million cigarette butts and 3.7 million food wrappers. The 2019 cleanup turned up 1.5 million fewer cigarette butts and 1 million more food wrappers.
Food packaging’s new top billing can be credited to a both a decrease in smoking worldwide and an increased reliance on single-use plastics. In the 2018 International Coastal Cleanup, there were 5.7 million cigarette butts and 3.7 million food wrappers. The 2019 cleanup turned up 1.5 million fewer cigarette butts and 1 million more food wrappers.
Cigarette butts and plastic packaging may trade spot back-and-forth until a sustainable solution to plastic packaging is widely implemented, Mallos says. “We need to really solve this problem upstream so that plastics never enter our waterways and never reach the beaches in the first place.”
The 2020 International Coastal Cleanup was held on September 19. Because of COVID-19, volunteers were encouraged to work alone, in socially distant small groups or simply skip the beach and reflect on how they could reduce personal waste.
Those who chose to participate could catalog their collected trash on the Ocean Conservancy’s volunteer app, which was updated to include a new category for PPE like face masks and shields.
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