Plastic nurdle spill an 'environmental disaster'
BBCA charity dedicated to protecting a river has called a spillage of 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".
Chief executive Sophia Stovall said: "Already we've seen fish with nurdles in their system and fisherman 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.
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.
Stovall said it was "unprecedented".
"We're classifying it as an environmental disaster and our concern is not just for the short term but for the longer term impact that it's going to have on our native species - our salmon, our fish, our wildlife, our birds – but also the longer ecological impact as well.
"The fish will be ingesting these nurdles, mistaking them for food, through which process they then starve.
"As part of the food chain birds and other creatures will eat these fish and also then the pollution will spread.
"The impact is vast."
She said the tidal nature of the River Tyne could "see the plastic flowing back and forth for years to come and the nurdles can embed themselves along the river bank".
'Catastrophic impact'
Newcastle University's Dr Geoffrey Abbot, a reader in organic geochemistry, said the nurdle spill was an "extremely bad" ecological event.
"The major concern is the wildlife exposure, it could take months or even years to clean up the contamination to the habitats on the coast and in rivers.
"Microplastics over time will be weathered down and we could see the formation of smaller particles.
"If they have jagged edges they are small enough to penetrate cell walls which would have a catastrophic impact on wildlife and even humans."
Campaigners have argued the Port of Tyne clean-up was delayed, which could have led to the plastic spreading further.
The port said it had to first focus on a salvage operation to remove a collapsed crane after the crash, but would now engage with volunteers on how to "best help" get rid of the nurdles.
The Tyne Rivers Trust called for a coordinated effort to clean up the spill.
"The river is one of our area's greatest assets, it drives tourism, leisure, we drink it, we risk taking it for granted and we need investment to care for it," Stovall said.
