Exposing
The UK’s Top Polluters
Exposing
The UK’s top polluters
Scroll to read the key findings
Surfers Against Sewage’s
Biggest
Citizen science clean-up
dataset yet!
During 2025, thousands of volunteers recorded what they found during cleans across beaches, rivers, parks and streets throughout the UK.
The evidence is clear: plastic remains the most common form of pollution in the UK – wherever you look. And a large share of it comes from single-use packaging.
With the thousands of pieces of branded packaging collected, volunteers found that just 12 household brands were responsible for over half of all branded packaging found.
We call them the Dirty Dozen.
This report reveals the 2025 Dirty Dozen and exposes patterns of missed targets, greenwashing claims and brands lobbying against the very policies designed to reduce plastic pollution.
What is the
brand audit?
The Brand Audit is powered by volunteers submitting their findings after taking part in the Million Mile Clean.
In 2025, volunteers from Ballycastle to Blyth, Lands’ End to John O’ Groats, and everywhere in between contributed data from thousands of locations across the UK, helping create the largest citizen science clean-up dataset of its kind.
Almost 160,000 people took part in a Million Mile Clean last year, with people from 2,549 cleans voluntarily submitting the data of their findings. The data from these cleans forms the basis of the Brand Audit.
The 2025
Dirty Dozen
Revealed…
The 2025 Dirty Dozen were responsible for over HALF (52%) of branded pollution found, accounting for 17,331 pieces of pollution collectively in just one year.
Nearly all of the 2025 Dirty Dozen are giant plastic polluters, and while some produce primarily single-use cans or mixed material packaging, none of this pollution belongs in the environment.
Who are the polluting
Parent Companies?
Behind hundreds of brands sit just a handful of powerful global corporations.
Just 12 parent companies accounted for 65% of all branded pollution found, controlling almost 150 brands in the pollution our volunteers collected.
Unsurprisingly, it’s the same culprits once again. Year after year, we’re finding the same branded pollution swamping the UK. This is not the first time these brands and parent companies have been called out for polluting our environment. So, why are they still coming out top in our UK pollution rankings?
2025’s most polluting parent companies:
Missed targets, delayed policy,
dirty tricks
Over the past decade, many of the brands behind the UK’s plastic pollution crisis have made bold public commitments – pledging to cut plastic, increase recycled content and shift towards more circular packaging systems.
These promises haven’t happened in isolation. Global initiatives like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Global Commitment brought together more than 1,000 organisations, including some of the world’s biggest polluters, all reporting progress against shared targets.
But our investigation shows a very different reality…
Across the sector, targets have been missed, delayed or quietly rewritten. Plastic production continues to rise. And in some cases, the same companies making sustainability pledges have actively lobbied against the policies designed to reduce single-use packaging.
The result? Voluntary action isn’t working.
See our detailed table for a closer look at how the Dirty Dozen and their parent companies are really performing against their targets.
The policies that could
Cut plastic pollution
There are two policies designed to tackle the UK’s packaging pollution problem: Deposit Return Schemes (DRS) and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR).
Together, they reduce single-use packaging, improve recycling rates and stop litter leaking into the environment.
These aren’t experimental ideas – they are proven systems already working in many countries across Europe.
What they are:
DRS is a system where you pay a small deposit when you buy a drink in a plastic bottle or metal can, and get that money back when you return the empty container. In short, DRS encourages people to return bottles and cans so they are recycled instead of thrown away.
EPR is a policy that makes producers (brands and manufacturers) responsible for the full cost of managing their packaging waste. In short, EPR pushes companies to use less packaging, improve product design, and make packaging more easily recyclable.
How the policies work:
So why are these policies
Still being delayed?
While publicly promoting sustainability commitments, many of the companies behind the UK’s plastic pollution problem have also lobbied against the policies designed to reduce it.
DRS and EPR have been under discussion in the UK since 2016. But industry groups representing many of the Dirty Dozen brands pushed for delays and weaker rules. As a result, key policies have been repeatedly pushed back, and DRS is still not expected to launch until 2027.
Every delay gives polluting companies more time to keep producing single-use packaging, while pollution continues to enter our environment.
Profit from pollution:
Right now, the cost of cleaning up packaging waste largely falls on taxpayers and local councils. Policies like EPR and DRS are designed to shift those costs back onto the companies producing the packaging. Meanwhile, in 2024 alone, brands in the Dirty Dozen generated over £30 billion in profit.
The most
Polluting items
As well as recording brands, volunteers were asked to submit the types of pollution they found. During 2025, volunteers recorded a staggering 104,341 items in environments across the UK.
Cigarette butts topped the list, followed by predominantly plastic packaging. And when we group items by category of material, not only does plastic come in first place, but it accounts for almost 50% of all items found.
What needs
to happen?
Surfers Against Sewage is calling for an urgent shift from voluntary pledges to binding action that matches the scale of the crisis. We are calling on Governments across the UK to act urgently, implementing:
Through the enforcement of existing legislation and expansion of bans government and regulators must tackle the worst polluting single use plastics on UK beaches.
Governments must introduce measures to ban toxic chemicals across the plastics lifecycle (supply chain) including toxic additives, PFAS, and endocrine disrupting substances that threaten human health and marine life.
Governments across the UK must work together to create a UK wide world-leading circular economy. This includes passing legally binding overarching reuse targets and implementing Deposit Return Schemes and Extended Producer Responsibility Schemes which design out waste, hold polluters to account and enable re-use and re-fill.
Governments must set legally binding targets to cut plastic production and consumption.
How you can take action
in 3 simple steps:
Big Brands are fuelling the plastic crisis; they’ve broken promises, greenwashed consumers, and derailed vital legislation.
To show big brands the power of reuse as an effective instrument for positive change, Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) are bringing back #ReturnToOffender! One of SAS’s original plastic pollution campaign actions. We’re turn up the heat on the UK’s top polluting brands and tell the government it’s time to crack down on those profiting from pollution.
Thank you!
This report would not have been possible without each and every dedicated volunteer taking part in the Million Mile Clean last year: rolling up your sleeves, removing harmful plastic from the environment and recording vital data to hold polluters accountable.
Every single piece of plastic picked up, and each brand identified, helped to make our case as strong as possible – creating irrefutable evidence to fuel our demands and drive on the fight.
The data collected reflects the growing movement of communities across the UK standing up against plastic and the polluters, with an unwavering commitment to protecting the ocean, nature and all the other wild spaces we love and depend upon.
So, a massive THANK YOU to everyone who helped. People power is what will turn the tide on plastic pollution, for good.
For the Ocean,
The Surfers Against Sewage Team
