Tiny ‘nurdles’ target of estuary plastic cleanup

By the time plastic reaches Raquelle de Vine, it has broken down so dramatically it is usually unrecognisable.

Occasionally, bottle caps and lollipop sticks poke out from mounds of sand, leaves and debris, but de Vine’s main role is helping remove tiny remnants of plastic flooding beaches and waterways across the country.

In an effort to educate those at the frontline about plastic mismanagement, de Vine hosted a cleanup of Christchurch’s Avon Heathcote/Ihutai Estuary from South New Brighton Domain with IPLEX, a plastic pipe manufacturer, on Saturday.

The Algalita South Pacific programme director said including plastics companies helped employees to ‘‘connect their actions’’ to what happened when plastic was not properly disposed of. About 20 IPLEX staff and their children attended the educational session and helped collect hundreds of thousands of microplastics, de Vine said.

IPLEX people and performance manager Emma Waters said seeing the plastic particles was ‘‘a real eye opener’’. ‘‘Seeing how small the plastic can degradate down to was really surprising to some staff.’’

With the help of a wheelie bin filter, designed by Dave Pine from Synapo, the group was able to sift through the sand faster and remove thousands more nurdles than would usually be possible, de Vine said.

Nurdles are the raw material used to make anything plastic, and they are about the size of a lentil. They do not break down into smaller pieces and can be harmful to animals, which mistake them for food.

It was the first time

plastic nurdle collection bins had been tested in Christchurch.

Volunteers shovelled sand in to the bins, the nurdles floated to the surface, and the sand sank to the bottom. As the water rose, the nurdles and organic waste flowed in to a filter bag.

Ingestion of micro-plastics has been documented in shellfish and birds, de Vine said.

Christchurch could ‘‘do more’’ to prevent plastics entering the estuary, such as putting filters on all stormwater drains within the estuary catchment, de Vine said.