The 5 Gyres Institute is named for the five great rotating currents where floating plastic collects. It is a science organisation first, with its own laboratory work and peer-reviewed research, and an advocacy organisation second. In 2025 it reported 2,050 hours of lab work and support for fourteen bills.
Why it matters to foodware
In 2016, 5 Gyres, the Surfrider Foundation, Clean Production Action and Upstream published the Plastics BAN List, a ranking of the plastic products most commonly found in the environment and most harmful once there. Food and drink packaging featured heavily, and the report remains one of the clearest explanations of why restaurant certification targets the items it does. It is still available and still readable.
TrashBlitz
TrashBlitz is the institute's free app for logging litter, including the brand and material of each item, during cleanups. The 2025 Plastic-Free Parks report used it to survey US national parks, which is as far from a beach as plastic counting gets, and found the same packaging.