An operation is under way to retrieve thousands of plastic pellets from the North Sea that were spilt in a collision between two ships last week, in which one man died.
The coastguard said the pellets, made of plastic resin and known as nurdles, were spotted by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and have begun to wash up in melted clumps on beaches in Norfolk and the surrounding coast.
Although they are not toxic, they do pose a danger to wildlife, the coastguard said.
The small pieces of plastic, between 1mm and 5mm, are thought to have entered the water when a container ship crashed into a tanker carrying jet fuel for the US military on Monday 10 March.
Both vessels caught fire after several explosions, and 36 crew were rescued, including Americans onboard the tanker, Stena Immaculate, and members of the Russian and Filipino crew of the Solong, the container ship.
The chief coastguard, Paddy O’Callaghan, said: “Yesterday [Sunday], the RNLI advised the Maritime and Coastguard Agency of a sighting in waters just off the Wash [a bay of the east coast of England] of a sheen that we now know to be plastic nurdles. This was confirmed by aerial surveillance flights, and other assets have subsequently been deployed. 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.”
Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust and Norfolk Wildlife Trust said they were very concerned about the pollution from the collision and said seabirds could die from choking or starvation if they ate the nurdles.
Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust’s head of conservation, Tammy Smalley, said: “We’re very concerned about the nurdles and burnt material that is adrift at sea as well as being washed up along the Wash and the Norfolk coast following the tanker collision last week, and we will continue to support the authorities in their efforts to clean up the pollution.
“At this time of the year there is also the risk that the birds return to their nests and feed the nurdles to their chicks. The plastic may also work its way up the food chain to larger marine mammals which feed on fish or smaller animals which have eaten nurdles.”
Sophie Benbow, the director of marine at the conservation organisation Fauna & Flora, said plastic pellets were “one of the largest sources of microplastic pollution globally and pose a grave threat to nature and coastal communities”.
She added: “It is extremely concerning that the North Sea ship collision has resulted in a mass plastic pellets spill. Once lost into the ocean, these tiny pieces of plastic are almost impossible to contain.”
The master of one of the vessels appeared in court at the weekend charged with gross negligence manslaughter.
Vladimir Motin, 59, a Russian national, was in charge of the Solong when it collided with the US-flagged tanker about 12 miles (19km) off the East Yorkshire coast.
The Crown Prosecution Service said a Filipino national, Mark Angelo Pernia, 38, was missing and presumed dead after the collision.
On Saturday, Motin appeared at Hull magistrates court. He did not enter a plea and was remanded in custody to appear at the Old Bailey in London on 14 April.
On Friday, O’Callaghan said both vessels were “stable” and salvors had boarded them to continue damage assessments.
He added: “There are now only small periodic pockets of fire on the Solong, which are not causing undue concern. Specialist tugs with firefighting capability remain at both vessels’ locations.
“Regular aerial surveillance flights continue to monitor the vessels and confirm that there continues to be no cause for concern from pollution from either the Stena Immaculate or from the Solong.”
It was initially feared the Solong, a container ship with a Portuguese flag, was carrying the highly toxic chemical sodium cyanide, but its owner, the Hamburg-based maritime company Ernst Russ, said four containers that had previously held the substance were empty.
