{"id":139060,"date":"2025-08-12T07:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T07:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/139060\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T07:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T07:12:09","slug":"buoyant-the-size-of-a-lentil-and-almost-impossible-to-recover-how-nurdles-are-polluting-the-oceans-plastics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/139060\/","title":{"rendered":"Buoyant, the size of a lentil and almost impossible to recover: how nurdles are polluting the oceans | Plastics"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a Liberian-flagged container ship, the MSC Elsa 3, capsized and sank 13 miles off the coast of Kerala, in India<\/a>, on 25 May, a state-wide disaster was quickly declared. A long oil slick from the 184-metre vessel, which was carrying hazardous cargo, was partially tackled by aircraft-borne dispersants, while a salvage operation sealed tanks to prevent leaks.<\/p>\n

But almost three months later, a more insidious and persistent environmental catastrophe is continuing along the ecologically fragile coast of the Arabian Sea. Among the 643 containers onboard were 71,500 sacks of tiny plastic pellets known as nurdles<\/a>. By July, only 7,920 were reportedly recovered.<\/p>\n

Nurdles washed ashore in Kerala. Photograph: KA Shaji<\/p>\n

Millions of these plastic balls have continued to wash ashore with the fierce monsoon storm surges that demolished a stretch of palm-fringed beach in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala\u2019s capital, in June. They lie scattered by the sea-facing Catholic church at Vettukadu and in tide lines on the beach, where giant jute bags of them, gathered by volunteers, await collection.<\/p>\n

Lightweight, buoyant and almost impossible to recover, they will circulate in moving sand and ocean currents for years, experts say.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe nurdles haven\u2019t just polluted the sea \u2013 they\u2019ve disrupted our entire way of life,\u201d says Ajith Shanghumukham, a fish worker in the town.<\/p>\n

A fishing ban, imposed after the spill by local authorities in four Kerala districts, has since been lifted but fears over contamination have hit fishing communities already struggling with declining fish populations and the changing climate\u2019s intensifying storms.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery few people now venture out to sea because the local markets simply aren\u2019t buying fish,\u201d says Shanghumukham.<\/p>\n

Those who do report nets full of nurdles and declining catches. \u201cPeople continue to worry about contamination,\u201d Shanghumukham says.<\/p>\n

While 100,000 fishing families received compensation of 1,000 rupees (\u00a38.50) from the state, this represented less than a week\u2019s income for most. \u201cThe crisis has plunged many families into poverty,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The wreck of the MSC Elsa 3, which sank about 14 nautical miles off Kerala with 77,000 sacks of nurdles onboard. Photograph: Indian Ministry of Defence<\/p>\n

Nurdles, a colloquial term for the plastic pellets, are the raw material used for nearly all plastic products. Lentil-sized, at between 1-5mm, and thus potentially classifying as microplastics, or fragments smaller than 5mm, they can be devastating to wildlife, especially fish, shrimps and seabirds that mistake them for food. They also act as \u201ctoxic sponges\u201d attracting so-called forever chemicals such as PCBs and PFAs<\/a> in seawater on to their surfaces, and also carry harmful bacteria such as E coli.<\/p>\n

Ingested by marine life, these pellets introduce a cocktail of toxins directly into the food web<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Joseph Vijayan<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen ingested by marine life, these pellets introduce a cocktail of toxins directly into the food web,\u201d says Joseph Vijayan, an environmental researcher from Thiruvananthapuram. \u201cToxins can accumulate in individual animals and increase in concentration up the food chain, ultimately affecting humans who consume seafood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Microplastics have been found in human blood<\/a>, brains<\/a>, breast milk<\/a>, placentas<\/a>, semen<\/a> and bone marrow<\/a>. Their full impact on human health is unclear, but they have been linked to strokes and heart attacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The spill\u2019s location and timing could not have been worse, Vijayan says. Nearly half of India\u2019s seafish are landed in the Malabar upwelling region, where the shipwreck happened.<\/p>\n

And Kerala\u2019s turbulent monsoon season, from June to August, which has hampered clean-up operations, is a time of great marine productivity, when rising nutrient-rich waters bring blooms of plankton, the foundation of the marine food web.<\/p>\n

A dead sea turtle, one of at least 90 washed ashore after the X-Press Pearl spill in 2021. Photograph: C Karunarathne\/EPA<\/p>\n

Worryingly, following the Keralan spill, there have been reports of nurdles once again washing up on beaches in Sri Lanka, a reminder of the worst recorded plastic pollution spill in history<\/a> when the X-Press Pearl container ship, carrying chemicals, caught fire and released 1,680 tonnes of nurdles into the sea off Colombo in 2021.<\/p>\n

The Kerala disaster, the latest in a series of pellet spills, has again exposed huge gaps in accountability, transparency and regulation in the plastics supply chain, environmentalists say.<\/p>\n

Dharmesh Shah, a Kerala-based plastics campaigner at the Centre for International Environmental Law<\/a>, says: \u201cThese spills expose the transboundary nature of pellet pollution, affecting countries regardless of their role in plastic production.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey reveal a chronic lack of enforceable global standards across the supply chain \u2013 from production to transport \u2013 coupled with inadequate transparency, reporting and accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sekhar L Kuriakose, of the Kerala State Disaster Management Authority, estimates the clean-up could take up to five years. The state has filed a $1.1bn (\u00a3820m) compensation claim<\/a> against MSC. The container shipping company <\/strong>MSC, which chartered the vessel, along with the owner, have filed a counterclaim, disputing jurisdiction and seeking to limit their liability<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the consequences of nurdle spills are being felt globally. In March, nurdles washed up on Britain\u2019s Norfolk coast after a container ship collided with a tanker<\/a> in the North Sea. In January 2024, millions of pellets washed up on Spain\u2019s Galician coast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Communities can wait years for compensation. It took until last month for Sri Lanka\u2019s highest court to rule that the X-press Pearl\u2019s Singapore-based owners owed $1bn compensation<\/a> for the 2021 sinking\u2019s \u201cunprecedented devastation to the marine environment\u201d and economic harm.<\/p>\n

Sri Lankans salvage material washed ashore from the X-Press Pearl. One problem with nurdles, says experts, is that they are not seen as hazardous material so they are shipped like any other cargo. Photograph: Eranga Jayawardena\/AP<\/p>\n

At least 445,000 tonnes of nurdles<\/a> are estimated to enter the environment annually worldwide; about 59% are terrestrial spills, with the rest at sea.<\/a> The number of big nurdle spills at sea is increasing, according to Fidra, a Scottish <\/strong>environmental charity.<\/p>\n

With plastic production expected to triple to more than 1bn tonnes a year by 2060, along with more frequent and intense storms, the threat is expected to grow, with some 2tn nurdles spilling into the environment a year. Yet no international agreements exist on how to package and transport nurdles safely, or even to classify them as hazardous.<\/p>\n

This week, delegates from more than 170 countries are meeting at the UN\u2019s plastic pollution talks in Geneva<\/a>, in an effort to resolve deep divisions over whether plastic production will be included in a final treaty. Campaigners hope successful talks will allow a global approach to pellet loss, packaging, transportation and legal accountability.<\/p>\n

Nurdles washed ashore on Spain\u2019s coastline in Tarragona. Millions of pellets washed up after a spill off Galicia on Spain\u2019s Atlantic coast in January last year. Photograph: Josep Lago\/AFP\/Getty<\/p>\n

Amy Youngman, a lawyer at the Environmental Investigation Agency, says: \u201cBecause of the biodiversity in the area, the Kerala spill is devastating. But coming four years after the X-Pearl Xpress, it was foreseeable.\u201d<\/p>\n

One problem, she says, is that ships are not required to disclose they are carrying pellets. Another is the failure to recognise harm when spilled. \u201cThey are not seen as hazardous or dangerous material so they are shipped like any other produce,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Human error causes most spills, she says, adding that laws on handling and storing pellets could reduce spills by 95%.<\/p>\n

A research paper published in June co-authored by Therese Karlsson, a scientific adviser for the International Pollutants Elimination Network, showed that plankton may well have been malformed<\/a> after exposure to leached chemicals from plastic and burnt plastic debris from the X-Pearl Express. Of 16,000 chemicals in plastic, 4,000 are known to be hazardous. \u201cBut for more than 10,000 of them we don\u2019t know the health impacts,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When a Liberian-flagged container ship, the MSC Elsa 3, capsized and sank 13 miles off the coast of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":139061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[746,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-139060","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115014555546040997","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}