Plastic Bottles Top 2025 Coastal Cleanup List as 1.3 Million Collected in a Day
More than 1.3 million plastic bottles were collected from beaches, rivers and waterways last year during the world’s largest single-day volunteer ocean cleanup, according to figures released by the Ocean Conservancy.
About 630,000 people took part in the 2025 International Coastal Cleanup, removing almost 13.9 million pieces of rubbish from more than 15,000 miles of coastline and waterways. Plastic bottles were the most commonly recorded item, with 1,338,712 collected, while volunteers also picked up 885,854 plastic bottle caps – making them the first and third most common items found. In addition, more than 1.2 million cigarette butts, 581,000 plastic shopping bags and more than 1 million other plastic bags and food containers were removed.
The event continues a legacy that began in 1986, when 2,800 volunteers cleared beaches on the Texas Gulf coast. Since then, the cleanup has engaged nearly 19.7 million people in 166 countries and territories, who have collected more than 439 million items weighing a total of 184,000 tonnes. Ocean Conservancy said the data had been cited in nearly 300 peer-reviewed studies.
Marine Wildlife Impact
The toll on wildlife was underscored by a recent study led by the Ocean Conservancy that found an albatross had been killed by ingesting an entire plastic bottle. Hard plastics such as bottle caps are among the deadliest items for seabirds when swallowed, according to the research.
“I have spent nearly 15 years conducting hundreds of cleanups all over the world, and whether we’re on the remote Alaskan coast or a tropical island hundreds of miles from land, we find bottles and caps at every cleanup,” said Allison Schutes, Ocean Conservancy’s senior director of conservation cleanups. “Most bottles are used for mere minutes and yet can last in the environment forever. Our communities, our ocean, and our planet deserve better.”
Calls for Policy Action
Dr. Anja Brandon, Ocean Conservancy’s director of plastics policy, said: “There’s really no excuse for this – plastic bottles are among the most recyclable items out there, which tells us two important truths: one is that we are making too much plastic, and two is that a lot of our waste isn’t getting where it needs to go.” She added that increasing access to recycling, including bottle deposit returns, and investing in reuse and refill infrastructure would go a long way in protecting the ocean.
The findings underline the continuing dominance of disposable plastic in marine litter, despite a growing number of bans and laws. Ocean Conservancy has advocated for policies such as California’s SB54, improved bag bans in California and Oregon, the Florida balloon release ban, and the UN Plastics Treaty.
Bottle deposit return schemes and extended producer responsibility (EPR) are among the most effective policies to reduce plastic bottle pollution, according to the organisation. Currently, 10 US states have bottle bills, with four more recently considering similar legislation. Since 2021, EPR policies have been passed in Maine, Oregon, Colorado, California, Minnesota, Washington and Maryland.
UK Context
UK consumers use an estimated 13 billion plastic drinks bottles a year, according to the WWF, with just half recycled. After nearly a decade of delay, a deposit return scheme for recycling drinks bottles is expected to come into force in 2027, following similar programmes in Germany, Sweden and the Republic of Ireland.