Durban - Pupils have a chance to save the ocean while having fun on Durban’s beaches during the school holidays which began yesterday.
uShaka Sea World education executive manager Jone Porter said a bucket and spade was all it would take to be part of the Great Global Nurdle Hunt 2023 starting today.
Volunteers will work together for the next month to gather evidence, raise awareness and try to limit the damage caused by the lentil-sized pieces of plastic slowly killing marine life and threatening public health.
Porter says nurdles are not only found in the sea but anywhere that stormwater drains run into.
“A number of animals will eat nurdles thinking they are fish eggs and they end up not getting nutrition,” she said.
Experts say when people swim or dogs run along the beach and swallow water, they could be ingesting plastic too.
The problem is so pervasive that at least 2 trillion of the pellets make it into the ocean each year, according to Fidra, the organisation which started the Great Global Nurdle Hunt 10 years ago.
Porter said nurdles were a persistent problem which was going to be around for a long time.
“Fish need to eat a lot and with time those nurdles will break down and land in the tissues of animals.”
This is the same animal or marine life which humans eat, she said.
Porter said while most of the nurdles ended up in the ocean, they also spread via rail and other transport systems as they moved from place to place.
Diver and environmental activist Clare Swithenbank-Bowman said nurdles were of “significant environmental concern” and she had been campaigning for government intervention and stricter global packaging regulations to contain spills.
She said nurdles were not classified as hazardous materials under the Occupational Health and Safety Act Hazard Communication Standard and the International Maritime Dangerous Goods code.
However, Swithenbank-Bowman said not only were nurdles harmful in themselves, but they also attracted toxins which stuck to their surface, making them doubly dangerous.
“They can be mistaken for food by animals, leading to ingestion and potential harm as well as starvation when consumed as clogging of stomach intestines occurs. Essentially, when we eat fish we could be eating plastic,” she said.
Research findings released by Fidra highlighted the impact of nurdles on people, protected areas, fisheries, tourism, livelihoods and wildlife, and revealed the risks to remote regions as well as those close to major plastic industry sites.
The report noted that a “robust” global plastic treaty was needed to ensure “safer stowage, packaging and labelling during transport and a legislated supply chain approach to ensure pellet loss prevention as well as agreed protocols and compensation in the event of further disasters such as those occurring off Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Norway and South Africa”.
Through her NGO Litter4Tokens, Swithenbank-Bowman empowers people in impoverished areas to collect plastic in exchange for tokens which can be redeemed for essentials like dry food at designated stores.
She has also invented a frisbee-like device with minute holes, known as a mermaid tear catcher, which can be swept through water to collect nurdles or “mermaid tears”.
Recently she raised concerns about a surge in the presence of nurdles along North Coast beaches like Sheffield and Ballito. She said it was unknown whether the nurdles were remnants of spills which occurred in Durban in 2017 and Plettenberg Bay in 2020.
For more information on the Great Global Nurdle Hunt 2023 go to www.nurdlehunt.org.uk.
Results of the Great Global Nurdle Hunt 2022
- A total of 317 nurdle hunts.
- 90% nurdle hunts found at least one nurdle (up from 2021 79% and 2020 87%).
- Nurdle hunts took place in 23 countries. Nurdles were found in all but one country - Indonesia.
- 1 365 people took part including groups from 63 organisations.
- 1 383 hours spent nurdle hunting (the equivalent of 8 weeks straight!)
- An estimated 1.2 million nurdles were found.
The Independent on Saturday