Wildoceans joins global nurdle hunt
WILDOCEANS, a marine programme of the Southern African Wildtrust NGO, is taking part in a week-long global nurdle hunt that began at the weekend.
The hunt ending on Sunday sees more than a 1000 people spanning six continents in more than 16 countries, with more than 60 organisations and 170 individual events joining the worldwide search for the nurdles in the first Great Global Nurdle Hunt.
Nurdles are small plastic pellets, melted down to make almost all plastic products. They are easily spilt and can be lost to the environment if not handled carefully. They are hard to remove once in the environment and can absorb toxins present in the water.
Easily mistaken for food by many animals, nurdles and their toxins enter the food chain daily.
Last year volunteers on a nurdle hunt removed 450000 plastic pellets from one beach in Scotland, according to Jasper Hamlet of Fidra, an uninhabited island on the Scottish coast.
“Going on a nurdle hunt is easy. Sadly, there are nurdles on most of the beaches surveyed so far. These plastic pellets are only the size of a lentil, but if you look on the tideline of a sandy beach, you often find them in large numbers.
“Data from the Great Global Nurdle Hunt demonstrates to governments and the global plastic industry the scale of the plastic pellet pollution problem. We need to make sure pellets are handled responsibly by plastic pellet producers, by transport companies and by businesses using pellets to make plastic products.
“Action is needed throughout the supply chain by those handling nurdles to stop this form of microplastic pollution,” said Hamlet.
In October 2017, Durban had a catastrophic storm that led to a container ship in the harbour being damaged and an estimated 49 tons of nurdles leaking into the ocean and on to KZN beaches.
This spurred the Wildoceans’ Blue Crew, the South African Association for Marine Biological Research, Department of Environmental Affairs, the KZN Waste Network, DRIZIT, CoastKZN and the public into action.