Washed-up nurdles can be dropped off at Bayworld

BAYWORLD has got behind a call for residents to tackle the nurdle marine emergency threatening Eastern Cape waters.

Bayworld marine living collections curator Dylan Bailey said it was stepping in as the Bay’s official drop-off point for any nurdles – plastic polymer beads – collect- ed by volunteers.

“I am also asking people to post photos and information – where and when they found the nurdles and how much – on the Friends of Bayworld and Algoa Bay Hope Spot Facebook pages,” he said.

“This is so we can gather some metrics on the extent of this event, which may be useful for academic research.

“We will have a big black bin by the ticket office for drop-offs.”

The Durban-based South African Association for Marine Biological Research has warned that, exposed to seawater, the nurdles would absorb pollutants and be consumed by marine animals.

While they would break up, they would never disappear and the concern was that these toxic particles could be ingested even by fil- ter feeders and become embedded in the food web.

Marine pollutants include pesticide poisons which are highly toxic to animals and people.

The nurdles, manufactured in Saudi Arabia, were set to be offloaded in Durban to distribute to the plastic manufacturing industry.

Over 49 tons of the little pellets, encased in 25kg bags and housed in two shipping containers, pitched off a Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) vessel after it broke its moorings and collided with another vessel in Durban Harbour during a fierce storm on October 10.

The containers and packaging ruptured, ejecting hundreds of millions of nurdles into the sea.

It is not clear yet why the nurdles were not contained before they escaped from the confines of the harbour.

They were first spotted in Port Elizabeth on Humewood Beach on Sunday.

The Port Elizabeth office of the South African Marine Safety Authority (Samsa) had sent a sample to Durban.

Once it was officially confirmed they were nurdles, MSC would be directed to extend its clean-up, Samsa head of shipping Captain Nigel Campbell said.