From 2018 to 2022, more than 200,000 Break Free From Plastic volunteers audited waste in 84 countries; 56 companies produced more than half of all branded plastic pollution

Every time you throw away a soda bottle or a snack wrapper, it might end up on a beach thousands of miles away from you. Now, hard numbers back up what many suspected for years. The study, ‘Global producer responsibility for plastic pollution,’ published in Science Advances, has found that just 56 companies are behind the majority of branded plastic waste found in nature. Researchers say it is among the clearest data-backed efforts linking the amount of plastic a company produces to how much ends up polluting the world.

The five-year cleanup that named names

The findings come from a massive citizen-science effort. More than 200,000 volunteers collected trash during the period between 2018 and 2022, logging each brand they came across in 84 countries, as part of 1,576 individual audit actions. According to Break Free From Plastic, the group that conducted the majority of those audits, volunteers used a straightforward process for data collection: collect plastic waste, identify its brand. Some data were also gathered using the 5 Gyres Institute's TrashBlitz app. Through this approach, beach and park cleanups generated a large database on plastic pollution.

Coca-Cola tops the list, but it is not alone

When researchers did the math, one name stood out. The study reports that the Coca-Cola Company alone constituted 11 percent of all the branded plastic waste gathered around the world. The second place was taken by PepsiCo with 5 percent, followed by Nestlé and Danone with 3 percent each, and lastly Altria, which is a U.S. tobacco company and is responsible for Philip Morris USA with 2 percent. Altogether, the researchers point out that these top five companies made up almost one-quarter of all branded pollution. Once the ranking is widened to the top 56 companies overall, a running total that already includes those top five, the group accounts for more than half of all the branded pollution. Most of these top polluters make food, drinks, or tobacco products.

More plastic produced, more plastic in nature

The paper also found that a 1 percent increase in a firm's plastic production was associated with about a 1 percent rise in its plastic pollution. This relationship held regardless of how effective a given country's waste-collection infrastructure was, a separate issue from whether individual companies label their packaging clearly enough to be identified at all, discussed below. In other words, reducing plastic manufacturing is the most effective method of reducing pollution. While campaigns of collecting garbage and recycling are beneficial, they cannot fully make up for the increasing number of plastics produced annually.

Half the trash has no name on it at all

Not all waste could be traced back to its manufacturer. In fact, as reported by the researchers, around half of the plastic items found during the audit were unbranded, which means there was no label left that would help identify who made the product. This, they say, is a clear sign of a major transparency issue, since the lack of labeling and reporting requirements allows companies to avoid being accountable for waste produced from their products. The authors of the study have called for an open, international database which would require companies to disclose how much plastic packaging they put into the world each year.

Why food and drink brands are leading the way

Fast-moving consumer goods such as beverages, snacks, and cigarettes caused more pollution than those from households or retail sectors. Fast-moving consumer goods refer to products often in single-use packaging which we buy and throw away quickly. This pattern was consistent with what has been happening for decades. Data from the Global Plastics Outlook shows that global plastic production doubled from 2000 to 2019, from 234 million tonnes to 460 million tonnes, with packaging accounting for the largest share of plastic. More short-lived plastic on shelves has meant more short-lived plastic in rivers and oceans.

The timing was not a coincidence

This study came at a time when world leaders were meeting in Ottawa for the fourth round of negotiations for a Global Plastics Treaty in April 2024. The study's authors hoped their findings would push negotiators into setting regulations that would make producers accountable, reduce the production of plastics and promote the use of reusable packaging. That treaty still hasn't been finalized: talks in Busan later in 2024 and in Geneva in August 2025 both ended without an agreement, and as of early 2026 negotiators were still working through procedural setbacks, including electing a new negotiating chair after the previous one resigned. For readers who have watched years of plastic bans and cleanup efforts, this research adds evidence for addressing the root cause of the problem.

What this means for the rest of us

It does not mean that individual choices are irrelevant. Bringing a reusable bottle or skipping the plastic straw still counts. However, according to the research, the lever of change that matters most is in the hands of a small group of multinational firms, not one particular customer. Encouraging firms that minimize packaging, supporting tough legislation around plastic usage, and asking for more transparency from businesses is something you can do. Transparency. So, the next time you see a familiar logo washed up on a beach, remember: you’re looking at data, not trash.