Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) launched its flagship week of the Million Mile Clean from 11th May – 23rd May. As part of this event, volunteers took part in a national brand audit, an important citizen science programme to drive corporate behaviour change. As the UK’s biggest coordinated beach clean event, over 50,000 volunteers took part in 600 cleans, covering 350,000 miles in total over the Million Mile flagship week. Of these volunteers, 3,917 walked and cleaned 11,139 miles of beaches, rivers, mountains and more, submitting 377 brand audit data sets. A total of 26,983 items of packaging pollution were monitored as part of the brand audit. The top 12 most polluting brands were responsible for 48% of all packaging pollution monitored during the audit. There was little change in the most polluting brands of 2021 compared to 2019 results with Coca-Cola, Walkers, McDonalds, Cadbury, Tesco, Lucozade, Costa Coffee, Mars Wrigley and Haribo all making repeat appearances.
This year’s Dirty Dozen companies were responsible for a massive 65% of all branded items collected. Coca-Cola once again took the top spot with Pepsi-Co holding on to the second place. The COVID-19 pandemic has seen some changes in the most polluting brands and the Dirty Dozen companies. Brands such as Stella Artois and Budweiser have moved up into the top 12 polluting brands with Anheauser-Bush InBev moving from eight to third in the Dirty Dozen companies ranking. This is likely to be due to the closure of pubs, bars and restaurants increasing personal alcohol consumption in public recreational settings during lockdowns.