A recent study by charity Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) confirmed Coca-Cola branded bottles remain the most common plastic litter found washed up on UK beaches. The local media have already dubbed the global food giant the killers of the beaches.

In the framework of the study, almost 4,000 volunteers collected garbage on the beaches, passing a total of 11,000 miles (17,700 kilometers). In total, approximately 10,000 items of branded packaging were collected during the study, which were traced back to 328 individual companies. 65% of pollution from branded packaging in the UK can be attributed to 12 companies, such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, AB InBev, McDonald's, Mondelez International, Heineken, Tesco, Carlsberg Group, Suntory, Haribo, Mars, and Aldi. However, Coca-Cola items were found more often than other brands.

The results of this experiment became the basis for a sooner launch of the deposit return scheme. It is a program under which consumers are charged an additional deposit fee when they buy a drink in a single-use container. This deposit acts as an incentive to support recycling because it is redeemed when the consumer returns the empty container to a return point. More than half of the products of the 12 beach-polluting companies and 80% of Coca-Cola packaging fall under it. At the same time, SAS officials noted that despite the surge in single-use plastic as a result of the pandemic, personal protective equipment made up just 2.5% of unbranded plastic pollution.

A Coca-Cola spokesman expressed regret that the company's packaging ended up where it should not. “All of our packaging is 100% recyclable and our aim is to get more of it back so that it can be recycled and turned into new packaging again,” the company said.