Among the most promising strategies for the preparation of reference MPs is cryogenic milling (cryo-milling), in which bulk plastics are cooled to below their glass transition temperature (T g ) before and during milling (oftentimes in a ball mill). The technique is robust across many materials and has been used for the preparation of both thermoplastic MPs and elastomeric MPs. The resulting MPs are polydisperse and morphologically diverse, making them suitable as reference materials for naturally found MPs. Additionally, the technique can be used to mill naturally found plastic waste and, in so doing, more closely replicate the chemical nature of MPs in a specific local environment. In this work, we prepare MP samples by cryo-milling a diverse range of bulk plastics and characterize the resulting populations. The plastics are (mostly) sourced from consumer products to accurately represent the diversity of naturally found plastics. By applying the same mechanical process to a range of materials, we provide a link between research data that focuses on narrower groups of material types. We characterize the shape and size distributions of the MPs, and shed light on the pros and cons of the different methods used.