Millions of nurdles washing up on SA Coastline

South Africa - Cape Town - 28 October 2020 - Shark Spotter crew members are removing small plastic nurdles from Fish Hoek beach. Over the past two weeks, the City of Cape Town’s Environment Management Department has detected a sudden increase of nurdles at beaches around the Cape Metropole. Nurdles are very small pellets of plastic used as raw material in the manufacture of plastic products. The City, in collaboration with stakeholders from The Beach Co-op, Shark Spotters, Two Ocean Aquarium, South African National Parks, and other conservation organisations, is busy with a huge clean-up effort to remove nurdles. With large amounts of nurdles being reported on beaches across the Southern Cape and Cape Town coastline, Plastics SA is investigating the possibility that the nurdle spill is from a vessel that lost cargo off the coast of Plettenberg Bay. Picture Henk Kruger/African News Agency (ANA)