More than 1.3 million plastic bottles were collected from beaches, rivers and waterways around the world during the 2025 International Coastal Cleanup, highlighting the continuing scale of plastic pollution in marine environments.
Around 630,000 volunteers participated in the annual cleanup organised by Ocean Conservancy, 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 collected during the cleanup. Volunteers also picked up more than 1.2 million cigarette butts, 885,000 plastic bottle caps, 581,000 plastic shopping bags and more than 1 million other plastic bags and food containers.
The figures underline the continued dominance of disposable plastic in marine litter despite growing efforts by governments to reduce its use.
Dr Anja Brandon, Ocean Conservancy director of plastics policy said the large number of plastic bottles collected showed that too much plastic is being produced and that significant amounts of waste are failing to reach proper disposal and recycling systems.
She said expanding access to recycling, including bottle deposit return schemes, as well as investment in reuse and refill systems, could help reduce the amount of plastic entering the ocean.
Plastic pollution poses a serious threat to marine wildlife. Ocean Conservancy said plastic waste is not simply an aesthetic problem for beaches and waterways, but can injure and kill animals through ingestion and entanglement.
Allison Schutes, the organisation’s senior director of conservation cleanups, pointed to research documenting the deadly effects of plastic on marine animals. In one case, an albatross was found to have died after ingesting an entire plastic bottle.
The scale of the cleanup has grown considerably since Ocean Conservancy organised its first event 40 years ago. In 1986, about 2,800 volunteers collected rubbish along the Texas Gulf Coast.
Since then, nearly 19.7 million people across 166 countries and territories have participated in the initiative collecting more than 439 million individual items weighing a combined 184,000 tonnes.
Plastic drinks bottles are the third most commonly recorded item over the initiative’s history with nearly 27 million collected. Volunteers have also removed more than 65 million cigarette butts 32 million food wrappers and 20 million plastic bottle caps.
Ocean Conservancy said the cleanup data has been used in nearly 300 peer reviewed studies and has helped researchers and policymakers evaluate measures designed to reduce plastic pollution.
Evidence suggests that some policies can make a measurable difference. A study published in 2025 found that plastic bag bans and charges reduced the share of bags among shoreline litter by between 25% and 47% compared with areas without such measures.
The UK is also preparing to introduce a deposit return scheme for drinks containers in 2027. The system is expected to encourage consumers to return used bottles for recycling, following similar schemes already operating in countries including Germany, Sweden and Ireland.
However, conservation groups say cleanup efforts alone cannot solve the global plastic pollution problem. They argue that governments and businesses must reduce the production and consumption of single use plastics while improving waste collection, recycling and disposal systems.
The latest cleanup figures serve as a reminder that millions of tonnes of plastic waste continue to reach rivers, coastlines and oceans, threatening marine ecosystems and wildlife worldwide.