{"id":263139,"date":"2025-03-20T18:28:13","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T18:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/20\/race-to-clean-up-billions-of-plastic-nurdles-that-washed-up-in-uk-after-tanker-crash\/"},"modified":"2025-03-20T18:28:13","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T18:28:13","slug":"race-to-clean-up-billions-of-plastic-nurdles-that-washed-up-in-uk-after-tanker-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/20\/race-to-clean-up-billions-of-plastic-nurdles-that-washed-up-in-uk-after-tanker-crash\/","title":{"rendered":"Race to clean up billions of plastic ‘nurdles’ that washed up in UK after tanker crash"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Clean-up teams are in a race against time to remove billions of plastic pellets that are building up on England’s east coast before they are washed back out to sea.<\/p>\n

The pellets – called nurdles – were spilled from containers on board a ship that collided with a tanker<\/a><\/strong> off the coast of Grimsby a little over a week ago.<\/p>\n

Strong winds have blown the plastic pieces – about the size of a lentil – 50 miles south and they’re now being scattered on the nature-critical beaches of Norfolk and Lincolnshire.<\/p>\n

We walked for a mile along the coast near the village of Titchwell in north Norfolk. What should be pristine sand now has a line of pellets left behind by the tide.<\/p>\n

It takes a while to see them against the natural debris of seaweed and shells.<\/p>\n

But once you get your eye in, the sheer number brings home the scale of the environmental disaster.<\/p>\n

Some are small semi-translucent balls, the “raw” plastic that is later moulded into everyday items.<\/p>\n

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More on North Sea Ship Crash<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Others have been charred by the intense fire that followed the collision.<\/p>\n

But we also found clumps of blackened pellets that had melted together in the heat.<\/p>\n

One was two metres across, the size of a family dining table.<\/p>\n

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\n Image:<\/span>
\n Nurdles at the Titchwell Marsh reserve. Pic: RSPB
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The top looked like molten lava. But underneath you could see the hundreds of thousands of pellets that made up its rock-hard bulk.<\/p>\n

It gave off a pungent smell, similar to tar or asphalt used on a newly-laid road.<\/p>\n

Jim Scott, the operations manager at Titchwell Marsh RSPB reserve on the Norfolk coast, said birds are likely to mistake the pellets for fish eggs.<\/p>\n

“The fear there is that birds are coming along and potentially eating those,” he told Sky News.<\/p>\n

“There’s also the fact that as time goes on, those nurdles will degrade into smaller bits and they’ll get into the food chain via plankton and then work their way up.<\/p>\n

“And indeed we are part of food chain as well, so it’s absolutely an issue for us.”<\/p>\n

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\n A clump of nurdles at the Titchwell Marsh reserve. Pic: RSPB
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The public is being warned not to touch the pellets in case they are covered in toxic chemicals.<\/p>\n

But West Norfolk Borough Council has organised professional clean up teams to remove as much plastic as possible before higher spring tides, expected in the next few days.<\/p>\n

Large clumps are being removed by all-terrain vehicles, while vacuums and sieves are being used to clear up individual pellets.<\/p>\n

Read more from Sky News:
Happiest country in the world revealed<\/a><\/strong>
Three quarters of a million pieces of rubbish found on UK beaches<\/a>
NASA reveals what’s next for returned astronauts<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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\n A clean-up team on Holme Beach in Norfolk. Pic: West Norfolk Council
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\n A huge clump of washed-up nurdles on Holme beach in Norfolk. Pic: West Norfolk Council
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But the coastline is so long – and the tidal salt marshes behind the beaches so inaccessible – that many will inevitably be left behind.<\/p>\n

Plastic pellets can now be found on shorelines around the world.<\/p>\n

According to the environmental charity Fidra almost 450,000 tonnes are spilled from the plastic supply chain every year. That’s enough to make 29 billion plastic bottles.<\/p>\n

Megan Kirton, senior project officer at Fidra, said the industry must do more to stop spills – such as keeping containers of pellets below deck so they can’t be released into the sea.<\/p>\n

“It’s not just in huge spills that these nurdles are getting into the environment,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It’s the everyday handling of nurdles because the plastic supply chain is so big and because they travel so many miles, so they’re leaking out of every step.<\/p>\n

“This really needs to be better regulated to prevent that.”<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clean-up teams are in a race against time to remove billions of plastic pellets that are building up on England’s east coast before they are washed back out to sea. The pellets – called nurdles – were spilled from containers on board a ship that collided with a tanker off the coast of Grimsby a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/25\/03\/768x432\/skynews-nurdles-titchwell_6862437.jpg?20250320175347","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[607],"tags":[356,6095,21,202665,3315,1593,38052,38314],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263139"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263139"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263141,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263139\/revisions\/263141"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}