The Shark Spotters Coastal Rehabilitation team has been noticing a lot of nurdles that have washed up on South Peninsula beaches over the last week – with nurdles found at Muizenberg, Fish Hoek, Simonstown, Millers Point, Witsands, and Kommetjie so far.
Nurdles are tiny beads of virgin plastic that are melted down and injection moulded to make a variety of new plastic products.
Nurdles threaten the marine environment as they easily make their way into the food chain when fish and other filter-feeding marine creatures mistake them for eggs and miniature jellyfish.
“We need YOUR help to clean up the nurdles and quantify how bad this pollution event is! Please go down to your local beach and collect as many nurdles as you can find,” the South African National Parks (SANParks) urged via Facebook.
“Once collected, please drop them at any of the Shark Spotters stations (Muizenberg, Fish Hoek, etc) where they will weigh them, and together with The Beach Co-op will ensure that we get an accurate record of the extent of the pollution and that they are properly disposed of.”
The organisation added that those who collect nurdles are urged to leave a note in the bag containing them which stipulates the date and location they were located from.
“Unfortunately, there are occasional incidents at sea where containers are lost overboard and the nurdles are released, causing a major environmental disaster,” SANParks said.
“So please help us keep our oceans healthy by collecting nurdles at your local beach and bringing them to Shark Spotters!”
Picture: SANParks/Facebook