1. Plastic Bottles
Top recommended action for individuals: Use a reusable bottle.
IMPACT: If you did this, 6,741 tonnes of plastic would be prevented from entering the environment each year.
Current issues with sustainable alternatives: Increase refill availability.
2. Food Wrappers
Study's key findings:
Top recommended action for individuals: Properly dispose of food wrappers in bin to reduce littering.
IMPACT: If you did this, 0.5 billion plastic litter items would be prevented from entering the environment each year.
3. Cigarette Butts
Top recommended action for individuals: Dispose of cigarettes correctly - do not throw them on the ground!
IMPACT: Potential to prevent 2,482 tonnes of plastic from entering the environment each year.
Current issues with sustainable alternatives: Not yet widely available cigarette butt disposal methods.
Trial innovations such as ballot bins which engage smokers by encouraging them to cast votes with their cigarette butts. Cigarette butt litter fell by 46% after a 12-week trial in Southend-on-Sea, Essex.
4. Food Takeaway Containers
Top recommended action for individuals: Use reusable containers when purchasing takeaway food. Preferably one you already own.
IMPACT: 1,290 tonnes of plastic litter could be prevented from entering the environment each year
5. Cotton Bud Sticks
Top recommended action for individuals: Switch to cotton buds with paper sticks! And avoid flushing down any waterways.
IMPACT: 450 tonnes of plastic litter could be prevented from entering the environment each year.
6. Cups
Top recommended action for individuals: Use a reusable plastic cup every day for takeaway drinks (coffee, juices, smoothies, etc).
IMPACT: 1,500 tonnes of plastic waste could be avoided if everyone ceased to use disposable coffee cups and switched to a reusable cup!
Current issues with sustainable alternatives: Charging for single-use cups may be more successful than offering a reusable cup discount.
7. Sanitary Products
How BIG is the wet-wipe problem?
The UK flushes a whopping 3.4 billion wet wipes down toilets each year. These make up to 94% of sewer blockages, and the same percentage increase in the number found on UK beaches between 2016-2017.
Top recommended actions for individuals:
a) DO NOT FLUSH wet wipes.
IMPACT: 3,400 tonnes of plastic waste could be prevented from entering sewage.
Current issues with sustainable alternatives: To not market products as flushable. Provide information on plastic content to inform consumer choice. Clearer messaging needed on the damage caused by flushing.
8. Smoking-Related Litter
The main problem in the UK: there's NO data quantifying the volume or associated impacts of smoking-related litter.
Current issues with sustainable alternatives: Terracycle Cigarette Waste Recycling Programme allows businesses to post all forms of cigarette waste to be transformed into alternative products. Yet there is currently limited information about the scalability or impacts of this programme.
9. Plastic Straws, Stirrers and Cutlery
4.7 billion straws, up to 44.1 billion drinks stirrers and 16.5 billion single-use cutlery items are used each year.
These items are not usually recycled and made from hard-to-recycle plastic polymers.
Top recommended actions for individuals: Refusal of these items is often a realistic action, without little impact on convenience. Where this is not achievable:
Use wooden or reusable cutlery when getting takeaway food or for stirring drinks
IMPACT: 222 tonnes of plastic prevented from entering the environment each year.
Current issues with sustainable alternatives: Data needed about the benefits and costs of switching to paper straws. They can be expensive and d there is uncertainty over water impact of production.
10. Plastic Bags
Top recommended actions for individuals: Use a reusable bag.
IMPACT: If all consumers switched to reusable, 9,000 tonnes of plastic waste would be saved each year. 1 billion bags were issued across major supermarkets from 2017-18.
Current issues with sustainable alternatives: Environmental impact of switching plastic produce bags to alternatives such as paper needs further investigation.