The incident has been dubbed Europe’s worst ever nurdle pollution incident. On 19 July tonnes of tiny beads, known as nurdles, entered the River Tyne when a vessel struck a shipping container in South Shields
A charity dedicated to protecting a river has called a spillage of one billion plastic pellets into it an “environmental disaster”.
On 19 July tonnes of tiny beads, known as nurdles, entered the River Tyne when a vessel struck a shipping container in South Shields, with the Tyne Rivers Trust fearing the plastic could be in it for “years to come”. The incident has been dubbed Europe’s worst ever nurdle pollution incident.
Chief executive Sophia Stovall said: “Already we’ve seen fish with nurdles in their system and fishermen through the gutting process have also confirmed it’s evident in a number of cases.”
The Port of Tyne said it acted quickly after the spill to contain the damage, while an Environment Agency investigation is under way.
It is estimated that the billion plastic pellets entered the water in just five seconds after the container holding them was split open.
Specialist contractors have been leading the clean-up, helped by thousands of volunteers, after the pellets started washing up on beaches in across north-east England.
The River Tyne is home to about 18 species of fish and is renowned for its salmon fishing, but the charity fears nurdles could plague the river for years to come
The Port’s CEO Matt Beeton said that the plastic pellets spilled into the river within five seconds of the crash.
Staff did not become aware of the contents of the damaged containers until Monday, July 20. Since then, the Port has been treating the spill as a “major environmental incident.”
Mr Beeton said: “Everything happened in those first few seconds. Our immediate response was to get global experts in to manage the river, get the containers off and put up a boom.”
However, that could only happen the following day after the accident, July 20; as staff were unable to access the site due to a police cordon.
Mr Beeton says the port notified councils of the spillage that day, once it was made aware nurdles had fallen into the river from CCTV footage.