North Sea collision: Plastic pellets start washing up on beaches on the Wash
Plastic pellets have begun washing up more than 60 miles away from the scene of a collision between two huge ships last week.
The Counter Pollution and Salvage team has been deployed to beaches on the Wash to retrieve the resin pellets, which can be harmful to wildlife, if ingested.
They are believed to have ended up in the water when the Solong container ship collided with the Stena Immaculate tanker, triggering a massive fireball and multiple explosions, last Monday.
Chief Coastguard Paddy O'Callaghan said a “sheen” had been spotted just off the Wash on Sunday, and this had been confirmed by aerial surveillance flights.
Mr O’Callaghan said "Some nurdles have now also been identified on the shore. Retrieval has started today.
“This is a developing situation and the Transport Secretary continues to be updated regularly.”
Nurdles are small pellets of plastic resin used in plastics production, sized between one to five mm and which weigh less than a gram. More than 17,000 of the 220,000 barrels of jet fuel being carried on the tanker have been lost, its operator Crowley said.
Vladimir Motin, of Primorsky, St Petersburg, in Russia, appeared at Hull Magistrates on Saturday charged with gross negligence manslaughter.
All 23 people on the tanker were rescued along with 13 crew from the Solong but Mark Angelo Pernia – a 38-year-old Filipino national – could not be located.