Greener Living
Plastic Pellet Spill Unleashes Cleanup Nightmare in Spain’s Coast
A small army of volunteers is collecting one by one the millions of tiny plastic balls spread over the country’s northern beaches.
Plastic pellets in the sand on Anguieiro beach in the Ribeira district of A Coruna, Spain.
Photographer: Brais Lorenzo/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Tiny white plastic pellets are washing ashore in Spain’s northwestern coast by the millions, with hundreds of volunteers leading the clean up as authorities struggle to coordinate and companies decline any responsibility.
A tanker ship lost six containers off the coast of Portugal on Dec. 8. One of them carried over 26 tons of PET pellets — tiny plastic balls measuring about 5 millimeters (about 0.2 inches) each used to manufacture plastic products.