Most plastic pollution data counts items. Break Free From Plastic counts brands. Its volunteers, at cleanups around the world, record the company name on every piece of packaging they collect, and the coalition publishes the results as a brand audit. The most recent global edition is the 2023 report; a supermarket audit followed in 2025, and a further one was under way in 2026.
What the audits show
Year after year the same handful of consumer-goods companies top the list, and the items are overwhelmingly food and drink packaging. The point the coalition draws from this is that responsibility sits with the companies that choose the packaging, and that the solution is for them to choose differently, through reuse and refill systems rather than better bins.
How this applies to restaurants
A restaurant is a small version of the same choice. The packaging a kitchen hands over is the kitchen's decision, and the audits are a useful corrective to the idea that litter is only a problem of customer behaviour. The practices PLEET scores are all decisions a restaurant makes before the customer is involved.
About the coalition
Break Free From Plastic is openly campaigning: it names companies and calls for policy. PLEET links its reports for the data, not as an endorsement of any campaign, and has no relationship with the coalition.