International Maritime Organization should classify plastic pellets as environmentally hazardous due to the chemicals that are added to them and the threat that they pose to marine biodiversity
Virgin plastic pellets, LDPE. Photo: Siddharth Ghanshyam Singh / CSE
Plastic pellets washing up on the beaches of Mumbai and Palghar in Maharashtra made it to the news headlines earlier this year. It is a matter of grave concern and an additional burden to the existing plastic pollution load on our natural ecosystems. While these pellets are made up of plastics, they are not generated as a result of littering by citizens. These are pellets that entered the natural ecosystem even before they could be made into different plastic products. It is worth noting that the clean-up of pellets is way more challenging as compared to a regular beach clean-up because of the pellets’ small size.
Small-sized nurdles ranging between 1 millimetre (mm) to 5 mm, plastic pellets are manufactured by petrochemical companies. They act as raw material or feedstock for the plastic industry to manufacture products ranging from carry bags to irrigation pipes.
In their primary form, plastic pellets can be of various polymers like polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, etc. which are used to manufacture various kinds of products used in sectors like packaging, automotive, construction, agriculture, medical, and others.
These pellets may leak from various sources including production facilities, transportation, storage, and recycling activities. They can be spilled on land and enter ecosystems like rivers and beaches as a result of rain or runoff water. Pellets can also be spilled directly into waterbodies like the seas and oceans due to shipping accidents.
Pellet spills can be categorised as chronic and acute. The plastic industry like producers, converters, and recyclers is the source of chronic spills, which may happen at a smaller scale but are continuous in nature. Acute spills are due to shipping incidents, which happen once in a while but contribute heavily to the quantity of plastic pellets in natural ecosystems.
Such spills are not a new phenomenon. Plastic pellets have been found on beaches since as early as the 1970s. A 2023 report titled Mapping the Global Plastic Pellet Supply Chain by Fidra, a Scottish non-profit, has tried to collect data on the nature of pellet spills through a citizen science approach between January 2005 and July 2023.
It was found that more than half of the incidents reported and mentioned in the report were acute in nature, and more than 80 per cent of the spills were caused as a result of leakage from the plastic industry or the transportation partner, while recyclers contributed to less than 3 per cent of the spills.
However, the report also points out that there is not enough evidence or data to quantify the amount of plastic pellets that have entered the ecosystem as a result of such pellet spills, especially in the Global South.
The maximum number of spill incidents have been reported from various parts of the Global North. For instance, North Americans reported eight incidents of chronic spills caused mostly by the plastic industry, while reporting 10 incidents of acute spills mostly by transport agencies.
Europeans reported 26 and 24 incidents of chronic and acute spills respectively, with the highest being reported from France. The Asia-Pacific region reported the first such plastic pellet spill as early as 2012 in China, followed by the X-press Pearl plastic pellet spill in Sri Lanka in 2021.
The latest plastic pellet spill reported from India, which affected the beaches across Mumbai and Palghar, was acute in nature and happened due to a transport agency that was carrying plastic pellets produced by Hanwha TotalEnergies in South Korea that may have been imported in India.
These pellets are transported from one country to another through the marine route and within the country / continent through the rail or road route. The five major exporters of plastic pellets as of 2021 are the United States (US), Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Germany, and Singapore. India is the sixth-largest importer of primary plastics (in the form of pellets) as of 2021, with a trade value of roughly $8 billion.
The highest quantity of primary plastics in the form of pellets is imported into the country from West Asian countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Other countries like the US, China, and South Korea also contribute to the influx of plastic pellets in the country.
Top 5 countries from where India imports polymers in the form of pellets
Source: Chemicals and Petrochemicals at a glance, 2022. Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Department of chemicals and Petrochemicals
The Fidra report highlights that the primary shipping route between Saudi Arabia, the UAE and China passes across the Indian Ocean in the Asia-Pacific region. It also highlights that places where the plastic pellets were found were in close vicinity of the shipping route used by petrochemical companies to ship primary plastic in the form of pellets.
Spills were reported from Hong Kong in 2012, Sri Lanka in 2021, Dubai and Mumbai in 2023. All these spill locations were on the route used for shipping plastic pellets.
Shipping routes and location of plastic pellet spills between 2012 and 2023
Source: Mapping the Global Plastic Pellet Supply Chain, 2023, Fidra. Redesigned by DTE-CSE
Plastic production involves the use of two substances: monomers or polymers like polyethylene and additives. The latter are chemicals used to impart specific colours and properties and to protect against ultraviolet radiations that cause the plastic to degrade.
The 2021 report titled Plastic pellets found on beaches all over the world contain toxic chemicals released by International Pollutant Elimination Network (IPEN) and International Pellet Watch reported:
Typically, additives are not bound to the actual polymer, meaning they can leach out from the plastic during the production, use, recycling, and disposal phase of plastics.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme report titled Chemicals in Plastics — A Technical Report, it is estimated that more than 13,000 chemicals are used by the plastic industry.
Of these, more than 24 per cent have been identified and proven to be a concern for human health but are unregulated globally. Only one per cent of the chemicals are regulated by various multilateral agreements like the Stockholm Convention, Minamata Convention, and Montreal Protocol.
Roughly half (46 per cent) of the chemicals used by the plastic industry do not have any hazard data in the regulatory databases that were analysed in the study. This essentially means that there are no safe guidelines for handling and using plastics in which these chemicals are used.
First and foremost, data needs to be put out in the public domain in terms of what is the potential extent of plastic pollution caused by production of plastic pellets, and due to their terrestrial and marine movement, especially in the Global South. This can be achieved if all plastic handlers provide information to relevant authorities about the pellet loss measures and are implemented, maintained, and monitored.
Packaging improvements need to be done to limit damage and loss in the supply chain, marking and labelling mechanism of plastic pellets being transferred and improved storage of freight containers.
International Maritime Organization (IMO) should classify plastic pellets as environmentally hazardous due to the chemicals that are added to them and the threat that they pose to marine biodiversity. Protocols and procedures need to be developed on plastic pellets spill response.
Higher liability should be placed on petrochemical companies, the plastic industry and shipping partners involved in the movement of plastic pellets. This should be a consideration in the ongoing negotiations to ‘End Plastic Pollution across the Life cycle of Plastics’.
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