Communities on the coast of northern Spain fear an environmental disaster: millions of small plastic beads have washed up on the beaches there. They are said to have come from a freighter that had lost the problematic cargo.
On December 8, more than 1,000 bags of plastic pellets were disembarked from the cargo ship “Toconao”, operated by the container ship company Maersk. This cargo has now washed up on the beaches of Northern Spain. The worst affected areas are around the Galician port city of Noia.
Plastic pellets can be toxic
Local authorities have already declared an ecological emergency. Hundreds of volunteers are now trying to collect the tiny plastic beads – a Sisyphean task because the particles are only a few millimeters in size. The Spanish public prosecutor’s office is also investigating the incident: the authority had received a tip that the non-biodegradable pellets could be poisonous, The Guardian newspaper reported.
The pellets, which are dangerous to the environment, were lost west of Viana do Castelo in northern Portugal. A maximum of six containers are said to have fallen from the “Toconao”. One of them contained at least 26,000 kilograms of plastic beads, while the other containers contained goods such as cling film, car tires and tomato sauce.
For example, plastic bottles are made from the plastic pellets. According to the BBC, 300 million tons of these so-called ‘nurdles’ are produced annually. Experts assume that 230,000 tons of this ends up in the sea.
Source: Krone
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