Tens of thousands of pieces of plastic littering the planet come from just a handful of multinational corporations, an environmental pressure group said Wednesday.

Coca-Cola, Nestle and PepsiCo were named by Break Free from Plastics, a global coalition of individuals and environmental organisations, who warned the companies largely avoid cleanup responsibility.

The coalition’s volunteers collected nearly half a million pieces of plastic waste during a coordinated “World Clean Up Day” in 51 countries a month ago, of which 43 percent were marked with a clear consumer brand.

For the second year in a row, it said, Coca-Cola came out on top, with 11,732 pieces of plastic collected from 37 countries across four continents — more than the next three top global polluters combined.

“Many of them have made commitments that they claim will make their products more sustainable, but largely protect the outdated throwaway business model that got us into this mess in the first place,” said the report, released in Manila.

As nations, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka dump the most plastic into the oceans, but “the real drivers of much of this plastic pollution in Asia are actually multinational corporations headquartered in Europe and the United States”, it said.

Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestle were responsible for the most pieces of plastic collected, according to the report.

Others in the top 10 polluters include Mondelez International, Unilever, Mars, P&G, Colgate-Palmolive, Philip Morris and Perfetti Van Mille, it added.