Nurdles pollute our coastline

Writer: De Waal Steyn.

Conservation authorities have expressed their concern after large quantities of plastic pellets, known as nurdles, were found on beaches from Cape Infanta to Muizenberg over the past few weeks. In the Overstrand washed-up nurdles have been found on Castle beach in Pearly Beach, at Die Damme in Franskraal and the Silver Sands beach in Betty’s Bay.

The public is urged to keep a lookout for these pellets and to assist with cleaning up our beaches by collecting and handing them in at designated spots to prevent them from ending up in our landfills.

Nurdles were first spotted along our shoreline in December 2017 after two damaged containers fell off a cargo ship in the Durban harbour. Within weeks the nurdles had made their way down the country’s east coast.

A nurdle is a tiny plastic bead, about 3 mm in diameter. This is the form in which virgin plastic leaves chemical factories. They are packaged in 25 kg bags and transported to other countries by the container load. There they go to plastic product factories, are melted down and injection-moulded into an endless variety of plastic products and packaging.

Click below to read more. (The full article can be found on page 1 and 2)