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Beachwatch reports

We've been running our national beach cleaning and litter survey work for 30 years, meaning we have decades of data at our fingertips.

Every year, the Marine Conservation Society analyses and collates all the recorded litter data gathered by volunteers to produce an annual report on marine litter on UK beaches.

Discover our annual findings below.

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Beachwatch 2024: What you found

A huge thank you to everyone who got involved with a beach clean or litter survey in 2024. Here's a full breakdown of the results.

Beachwatch 2023: What you found

A huge thank you to everyone who got involved with a beach clean or litter survey in 2023. Here's a full breakdown of the results.

Beachwatch 2022: What you found

A massive thank you to everyone who took part in a beach clean and litter survey in 2022.

How do we use our State of Beaches reports

The data we collect is vital; it allows us to determine the success and influence of litter pollution policies year on year, discover the most regularly seen type of litter found on beaches and ultimately helps us campaign for change to reduce beach pollution.

We use these findings as evidence to lobby governments for legislative change, influence industry practices and to drive our campaigns.

Not only has the annual ‘State of Beaches’ report shown the impact of volunteers on our beaches, but it has also been fundamental in bringing impactful change to the UK. From the introduction of the carrier bag charge (2015) and the banning of microplastics in personal care products (2017), to the recent bans in single-use plastic items and plastic in wet wipes, our State of Beaches report and the beach clean data it contains has helped to make some of the biggest and most significant impacts on beach litter ever.

Our State of Beaches report saw an 80% drop in plastic bags found on UK beaches since the 5p charge was introduced

Questions about our litter data

Our litter survey form lists all the main litter items you're likely to find over a 100-metre stretch on your clean. It categorises each item according to what it’s made from, with ‘plastics’ being the biggest section. We ask you to record the data over 100 metres if you can, so we can make the data comparable. 95% of all litter items are likely to be found within a 100-metre stretch, but, after your survey, you can then clean as much of the beach as you like!

When doing a beach clean, you'll mark out a 100 metre stretch within your beach clean area. The survey will be completed within this stretch. It goes along the strandline (the high tide mark – generally seen by a collection of seaweed left on the shore) and you should record all items found, no matter how big or small, along the 100 metres - including width wise from the strandline to the back of the beach.

Our beach clean organisers upload their data to our website. If you’re an organiser, you’ll be prompted to do this and shown where to do so when you log on. This data is then automatically uploaded to our national database where we've been recording beach litter data since 1994. Our long-term data set is unique in helping to identify trends and patterns over time so we can stop the pollution at source.

We use improved methods to analyse Beachwatch data to make it as fair and accurate as possible. We start by summarising data at each individual beach stretch before combining it at larger scales, so no single beach skews the results.

Instead of using averages (means), we report the median (the middle value) which better reflects typical litter levels. We also analyse plastic pieces under 2.5cm separately, as their high numbers can hide important patterns in the data.

These changes help ensure our reporting is clearer, more balanced, and more useful for protecting our seas.