Nurdles are small plastic pellets used to make various plastic products. Over 250 billion pounds are produced and shipped worldwide each year. They can cause marine pollution and harm marine organisms. Nurdles are difficult to estimate in the world’s oceans, but they are routinely found on beaches and in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Tighter control of pellets is needed to reduce their impact on the environment.
Nurdles are the raw material for nearly every plastic product on Earth, from the keys on a keyboard to the jug of juice in a fridge. They are sometimes known as pre-production plastic pellets, in reference to them being a feedstock, or “plastic resin granules”. As these alternative names suggest, they are tiny balls of plastic that can be melted down and molded into new shapes.
It is estimated that over 250 billion pounds (113 billion kilograms) of nurdle are produced and shipped worldwide each year. They are typically shipped by tanker truck, with each tanker loaded to the brim with pellets. The benefit of using tankers is that they can be easily loaded onto container ships, making them easy to move across the ocean and unload onto trains and trucks for inland transit.
To use nurdles, manufacturers feed plastic granules into hoppers which melt them, allowing the manufacturer to make plastic products. They can be melted down and injected into molds, extruded from machines, or pressed in specialized presses designed to, among other things, make specific products. Nurdles come in a variety of types, allowing manufacturers to make a range of products and can be clear or coloured, allowing manufacturers to color their own plastics or use pre-mixed colors for their products.
Marine pollution studies suggest that nurdles may be a major constituent of marine debris. They are manufactured in such a large volume every year that it is almost inevitable to find some that are poured at every step. When they spill over, they make their way into waterways, eventually reaching the ocean, where they can wreak havoc. Pellets can carry harmful chemicals that harm marine organisms, can suffocate small animals and appear to be able to act like sponges to concentrate pollutants released into the marine environment.
The amount of nurdles currently floating around in the world’s oceans is impossible to estimate, but beach cleanup crews and researchers routinely scoop them up in chunks from beaches and areas like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, suggesting they may be an endemic problem. Since plastic takes thousands of years to break down, nurdles could potentially endure in the wild for generations, leading many people to encourage tighter control of pellets in an effort to ensure fewer of them make their way into the world.
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