Mile 187.9 LBD — ATOFINA Cos-Mar Plant Wharf

Nurdles: What Are Nurdles?

Below Baton Rouge you might have noticed the beach strewn with tiny clearish white plastic blobs about the size of a tear drop. Maybe you saw them during your walks along the shoreline; they are especially noticeable at water’s edge with other micro-detritus like bits of leaves, small twigs, decomposed coal and large grains of sand. These transluscent globular “pills” are the basic currency of the plastic industry. Composed of high-density polyethylene they are mostly inert (considered non-toxic) Nevertheless they have been known to vent phthalates in the oceans, and can cause digestive problems for living creatures. You probably haven’t seen them before now because they are not made above Baton Rouge. But below Baton Rouge, they are manufactured by the billions -- a major product of some of the industries found within Chem Corridor -- and of course are accidentally spilled during cargo transfer.

Nurdles or "nerdles" are mistakenly consumed as fish eggs, and have been found in the guts of fish and other creatures. Not only can they cause physical disruptions to respiration and/or digestion (in some cases blockage or suffocation), but they can emit toxins and simultaneously absorb toxins like PCBs out of the water. If you haven’t noticed nurdles, start looking, and then maybe remove them the beach and add to your trash bag before some fish or turtle inadvertently eats one. The dozen you pick up are insignificant to the quadrillions of nurdles that are manufactured every year, but as the saying goes “every little bit helps.”

Wikipedia offers a one line definition for nurdle: “A pre-production microplastic pellet about the size of a pea” Going to “microplastic,” Wiki continues: A large portion of marine debris consists of plastic particles, including nurdles, pre-production microplastic resin pellets typically under 5 mm (0.20 in) in diameter found outside of the typical plastic manufacturing stream and an intermediate good used to produce plastic final products; microbeads from cosmetics; and the breakdown products of plastic litter. Plastic particle water pollution is also referred to as mermaids' tears. Approximately 60 billion pounds (27 million tonnes of nurdles are manufactured annually in the United States. One pound of pelletized high-density polyethylene (HDPE) contains approximately 25,000 nurdles (approximately 20 mg per nurdle). (Wikipedia)

Nurdles are a major contributor to marine debris. During a three-month study of Orange County beaches researchers found them to be the most common beach contaminant. Nurdles comprised roughly 98% of the beach debris collected in a 2001 Orange County study. Waterborne nurdles may either be a raw material of plastic production, or from larger chunks of plastics. A major concentration of plastic may be the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a growing collection of marine debris known for its high concentrations of plastic litter. Nurdles that escape from the plastic production process into waterways or oceans have become a significant source of ocean and beach plastic pollution. Marine life is severely threatened by these small pieces of plastic: the creatures that make up the base of the marine food chain, such as krill, are prematurely dying by choking on nurdles. Nurdles have frequently been found in the digestive tracts of various marine creatures, causing physiological damage by leaching plasticizers such as phthaltates. Nurdles can carry two types of micropollutants in the marine environment: native plastic additives and hydrophobic pollutants absorbed from seawater. For example, concentrations of PCBs and DDE on nurdles collected from Japanese coastal waters were found to be up to 1 million times higher than the levels detected in surrounding seawater. (Wikipedia)

High-density polyethylene (HDPE) or polyethylene high-density (PEHD) is a polyethylene thermoplastic made from petroleum. It is sometimes called "alkathene" or "polythene" when used for pipes. With a high strength-to-density ratio, HDPE is used in the production of plastic bottles, corrosion-resistant piping geomembranes, and plastic lumber. HDPE is commonly recycled, and has the number "2" as its resin identification code (formerly known as recycling symbol). (Wikipedia)