There are currently no internationally agreed protocols for cleaning up plastic pellets after a spill. Further guidance and international cooperation is needed to ensure resources and good practice is in place to deal with spills swiftly.
Types of pellet pollution
Plastic pellets entering the environment can have devastating impacts on wildlife and communities. There are two main types of pellet pollution; acute and chronic pollution.
Acute pellet pollution: These are major incidents where a large amount of pellets are spilled at once. These pollution incidents typically happen during the transport of pellets but can also occur if a site is flooded. If you find bags of nurdles or particularly clear, bright or clean nurdles, and where all nurdles found look like they might come from the same ‘batch’, they are more likely to be from a recent singular spill event. A quick clean up response to an acute pollution incident can significantly reduce the spread of plastic pellets. You should share all relevant information with your local environmental regulator and other local response agencies as quickly as possible.
Chronic pellet pollution: Continuous, or ongoing pollution where plastic pellets are lost regularly from everyday site operations (e.g. producers, converters and recyclers) is how most nurdles are lost. Nurdles can become weathered over time due to exposure to oxygen, sunlight and the action of the sea, wind and rain. Brightly coloured nurdles become duller and clear nurdles become more opaque and yellow with age. Finding an accumulation of pellets that have varying degrees of weathering, colour variation and sizes can be a sign that the loss of pellets is from a chronic pollution source. Addressing chronic pellet pollution may require a longer term plan and investigation from local environmental regulators to identify who is responsible for the chronic loss of pellets and hpw to address it.
Help! I’ve found lots of nurdles – Next steps
- Establish if it is a recent acute spill or an accumulation of pellets from chronic pollution (see above)
- Contact local and national level authorities to get support with the spill clean up
- Document the spill through images and videos (if it is safe to do so)
- Contact the press
- Reach out to other NGOs in the area to see if they are aware of the issue as they may have made progress with the spill response
- Email info@fidra.org.uk to add your spill incident on our global spills log
The Global Spills Log
Fidra are collating evidence of pellet pollution globally through the Great Nurdle Hunt which records all types of pellet pollution and a Global Spills Log which details specific acute incidents. To ensure the spill log is accurate we require as much of the the following information to log the incident:
Photo Credit: Athanasios Avdimotis (Plastic pellets found on a beach in Greece)
- Date
- Location of the spill and location of nurdle land fall, if the spill is offshore
- Estimated number/volume of nurdles
- Nurdle producer and company transporting nurdles
- Knowledge on clean up – what parties are involved
- Names of NGO’s involved
- Verification, this can be in the form of a news article, government/local authority statement, community group post
Please send all information to info@fidra.org.uk
| Date | Where | Spill | Local NGOs involved in response | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10/01/2024 | Northern Spain | Containers lost at sea | Noia Limpa, Surfrider Espania, The Good Karma Project and more | Find out more |
| 07/02/2024 | Pittstown, New York, USA | Train Derailment | Find out more | |
| 02/03/2024 | Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA | Train Derailment | Find out more | |
Challenge
Plastic pellets are moved across the world, meaning nowhere is safe from pellet pollution. The challenge is preventing spills in the first instance with better packaging, transport practices and stowage. In addition protocols and preparedness plans are needed to ensure a swift response and accountability in the event of spills this requires international cooperation and national legislation and policies.
It can be difficult to communicate with local government and decision makers about the urgency of being prepared for a pellet spill until your local community has experienced one and by then it can be too late. However evidence from the ‘Mapping the global plastic supply chain‘ report our global spills log and the nurdle hunt data (maps, infographics and images) are effective tools for communicating the need for legislation and for pushing decision makers to put pressure on the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to make changes to plastic pellet trade.
Prevention measures
Reducing the scale of the disaster caused by chronic and acute pellet spills would begin with a legislated supply chain approach but would also rely on international agreements such as the Global Plastic Treaty, OSPAR and the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to acknowledge plastic pellets as environmental pollutants, enforcing more stringent packaging requirements, safer tranport (such as stowage below deck) and a spills protocol in place to ensure if a spill occurred immediate actions significantly reduced the risk of a large scale environmental disaster.
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