Earthwatch, an environmental charity, conducted a survey of how much plastic is in the UK’s rivers.

According to the report, most of the eight million tons of plastic pollution, which annually falls into the world’s oceans, is transferred there by rivers. Earthwatch Europe has found six of the ten most common types of plastic waste in the UK’s rivers that relate to packaging.

Earthwatch Europe research leader Debbie Winton, the author of the report, said: “It is really encouraging that plastic pollution is now the focus of many people, but with so much information it’s hard to understand the best ways to change that. Our report contains simple, evidence-based recommendations to show people exactly what changes they can make, and the positive impact of these changes on our waterways. ”

Topping the list of plastic packaging waste in rivers is plastic bottles, including bottles for beverages, hygiene products, household detergents and cleaning products, which accounted for 14% of the detected plastic waste. On average, each person uses 150 bottles of water per year. Annually, 5.5 billion plastic bottles make up the waste that is incinerated or sent to landfills, producing 233,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions or equivalent emissions. At the same time, 65% of the population would use the bottles again if the water for their filling was freely available.

The second place in the list is occupied by plastic wrappers, including bags, candy wrappers, chocolate and other candy wrappers, which in total amounted to 12% of waste. On the third place in the list was the dishes for food, pick-up sales, as well as containers from supermarkets. This is 6% of plastic found in rivers.

Plastic cups and cups made up 4% of plastic pollution in rivers. It is estimated that 2.5 billion coffee glasses are used and discarded annually, and 99% of them are not recycled again. Another 2% of the garbage was packaging for tobacco products. And at the last place in the list of contaminating plastic are plastic bags, accounting for 1% of garbage. The 2018 report on disposable plastic bags published by the Department of Food and Agriculture said that the use of such plastic bags has dropped by 86% since the introduction of a tax in the amount of 5 pence in 2014. Although the same report indicated that the seven largest retailers used in 2017-18. over a billion plastic bags.