Nurdle spill from MSC Elsa 3 sparks environmental concerns along coast
From the edge of the waterline on Kovalam's scenic Grove Beach, an irregular line of volunteers extend up the sand to a shallow pit.
Muddy seawater fills the makeshift tank, about eight feet across and lined with blue tarpaulin. Water collected in small buckets from the inrush of waves is passed up the line and poured into the pit.
Elsewhere on the beach, spread out under the ominous monsoon skies, more men and women use common household implements such as long-handled floor wipes and brushes to painstakingly sift through the sand.
'Since the pellets float, this is the easiest way to separate them from water and sand,' a volunteer explains pointing to the water-filled pit. 'But it is going to be a long process as many more keep coming with the tide,' he concedes.
Over the past several days, this strange sight has become routine for beaches across Thiruvananthapuram district as community volunteers attempt to scoop up maddeningly tiny plastic pellets from the sand. Zillions of pellets, also called nurdles, have washed ashore on the southern coast following the sinking of the Liberia-flagged container ship MSC Elsa 3 off Kochi on May 25.
Within days of the accident, pellets, each barely 2 mm to 3 mm in size, have invaded every nook and cranny on the coast. It appears like splashes of white paint on the sand from a distance.
Over the past five days, the volunteers on the Grove Beach alone have collected and packed two container loads of nurdles, spending close to seven hours a day on the backbreaking work.
The Aapda Mitra community volunteers have been hired by the Gujarat-based Marine Emergency Response Centre (MERC), tasked with onshore salvage of cargo by the ship's owners Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), under conditions set by the Kerala State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA).
On the nearby Hawa Beach (Eve's Beach), a big tourist draw at Kovalam, a similar clean-up drive attracts curious stares from visitors. 'I didn't know what they were,' comments Nutan Kumari, a homemaker from Bihar, on the pellets as she keeps a watchful eye over her son who is engrossed in scooping up sand with a toy cup-and-spade set.
Footfall on the beach is relatively low at this time of the year as it is the off-season for tourists. Armed with buckets and brushes, volunteers have spread out across the beach, weeding out pellets from the loose sand. It is hard work, and the rainy season does not make it any easier. Here, too, a water-filled pit is used to separate pellets from the sand.
Nonetheless, it is also easy to see how the nurdles, pale white and so minuscule that individually they are near-invisible, get dispersed away from the coast. Though not inherently toxic, its tiny size, buoyancy and resemblance to fish eggs make the nurdles an invisible and dangerous pollutant once they enter the ocean.
Unsuspecting visitors could easily carry them underfoot along with the mud and sand on their shoes, for instance. There have also been complaints of unbroken bags of pellets being found in the lower reaches of the Neyyar river, perhaps reaching there through the estuary with the tides.
The nurdle spill from the ship has been only one, albeit a critical one, of Kerala's environmental worries since the sinking of MSC Elsa 3. On her way to Kochi, the vessel, laden with 643 containers, started listing dangerously some 14.6 nautical miles from the coast, dislodging scores of containers, including several containing suspected hazardous cargo, into the sea.
As of June 15, 61 containers have been recovered from the Kerala coast, according to a June 15 sitrep on the accident by the Directorate General of Shipping. The shipping disaster has worsened the troubles of the district's fisher community during the southwest monsoon season.
For decades now, the fisher community here has been battling coastal erosion and the loss of work on account of inclement weather, says Valerian Isaac, a 58-year-old fisherman from Anchuthengu. 'Now, the fear that dangerous cargo from the ship may have mixed up with the seawater has hit fish sales as well. Atop this, debris from the ship, including the pellets, have washed ashore in multiple locations along the coast. The tides keep carrying them in and out,' Isaac says.
Shortly after the nurdle spill, the Marine Monitoring Lab under the Department of Aquatic Biology and Fisheries, University of Kerala, described it as the 'first major incident of plastic nurdle landings in India caused by a shipwreck.'
The tiny granules, or pre-production plastics made from materials such as polyethylene or polyvinyl chloride, are the base material for other plastic products. In pellet form, they are easy to transport, and every year, millions of tonnes get shipped across the globe. Ingested, these pellets pose a danger to marine organisms, including fish, as they can cause intestinal blockages. Over time, they can break up into even tinier fragments, entering food chains and human diets, says A. Biju Kumar, Vice-Chancellor of the Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies (KUFOS).
And the nurdles keep on coming, adding to concerns about plastic pollution and effective strategies for tackling it. The menace has hit the shorelines all the way from the Kerala coasts to Kanyakumari and Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu.
Its continuous replenishment along shorelines presents an ongoing environmental concern, according to an assessment of the Director General of Shipping. While clean-up operations are proceeding, fresh deposits necessitate sustained manpower to prevent secondary pollution. Approximately 65 tonnes of nurdles have been collected from across affected shorelines, it says.
Sekhar L. Kuriakose, Member Secretary, KSDMA, feels that the task of clearing the nurdles is going to be a time-consuming process, given the magnitude of the dispersal. 'The removal of nurdles is going to be a long-term exercise, which may take at least a year-and-a-half to complete. If the experience of the Sri Lankan nurdle spill following the MV X-Press Pearl cargo ship accident in 2021 is anything to go by, it could even take up to five years,' says Kuriakose.
The back-to-back ship accidents and the impacts of the harsh monsoon season have hit the State hard. The MSC Elsa 3 accident was followed by the fire that destroyed the Singapore-flagged Wan Hai 503 following an onboard explosion. The fire accident was reported further north off the Beypore coast. The accidents occurred at a most inopportune moment for the State, which is looking to expand its maritime horizons with the recently commissioned International Seaport at Vizhinjam in Thiruvananthapuram.
Harmless as they may seem at first glance, the plastic pellets, in reality, pose long-term and multidimensional impacts, experts point out.
The pellets function as toxic sponges adsorbing hazardous substances such as heavy metals, antibiotics, persistent organic pollutants, microbial contaminants, and other emerging pollutants from the surrounding environment, says S. Bijoy Nandan, Dean, Faculty of Marine Sciences, at the Cochin University of Science and Technology.
'Once ingested by marine organisms, these contaminated nurdles act as vectors, introducing toxins into the food web. Over time, these pollutants can bioaccumulate and biomagnify in higher trophic levels, including humans, potentially disrupting vital physiological and biochemical functions,' explains Dr. Nandan.
Furthermore, in both the water column and seabed, nurdles can bind with organic matter and can become a pseudo-food source for zooplankton, fishes, crustaceans and molluscs, facilitating their entry into the marine food web and enabling widespread trophic transfer across ecosystems, he says.
Anu Gopinath, Professor and Head, Department of Aquatic Environment Management, KUFOS, shares similar concerns. 'Right now, everyone is worried about the microplastic pollution and the impact on fish resources. True, it is a major concern, especially for pelagic fishes as the pellets still in the ocean could have accumulated at different depth zones. But we also have to take into consideration long-term effects such as airborne contamination once these lightweight pellets break up into even tinier, nano granules. At nano sizes their detection turns problematic,' says Dr. Gopinath.
Moreover, a real picture of the nurdle spill will emerge only when the rain subsides and the weather settles, according to her. Dr. Gopinath also underscores the need for observation along the entire Kerala coast, as seasonal shifts in ocean currents could carry the pellets far and wide.
Friends of Marine Life (FML), a Thiruvananthapuram-based NGO working on marine biodiversity research, recently showcased the challenges confronting Kerala on account of the twin shipping disasters at the United Nations Ocean Conference in France.
Robert Panipilla and fellow researcher Kumar Sahayaraju urged the United Nations to establish and enforce international regulations governing the maritime transport of chemical and plastic pollutants.
'Environmental disasters can be prevented to a considerable level through strong, enforceable laws and corporate accountability. The recent disasters underscore the need for Kerala to have a standard operating procedure concerning maritime emergencies,' feels Panipilla.
Local self-government institutions and coastal communities need to be taken into confidence for addressing related issues and challenges, he feels.
'Moreover, public attention has largely concentrated on objects that have remained afloat on the sea. Wastes from the wreck would also have settled on underwater marine habitats,' he cautions.
The Kerala Swatantra Matsya Thozhilali Federation has expressed concern over the pace at which the clean-up of the pellets and the removal of containers is taking place. 'The impacts of the accident hit the fishing community first. People are reluctant to buy fish, fearing that they may be contaminated. Steps should be taken to alleviate the fear and speedy recovery of all the containers,' says Jackson Pollayil, State president the federation.
The fishers of the State, who were bearing the brunt of the monsoon fury, have now one more reason to be worried about. The nurdles. The tiny granules have hit their lives in a big way, even harder than the violent waves.
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