Millions of Toxic 'Mermaid Tears' Engulf Coastline and Threaten Wildlife

Huge numbers of tiny plastic pellets have been washing up on the beaches of Galicia in Spain, much to the dismay of residents.

Millions of the tiny plastic beads, also known as nurdles or mermaid tears, have washed up on several beaches along the coast since December 15, local environmental group Noia Limpa said on its Facebook page.

Around 70 bags of the pellets, each weighing around 55 pounds, have been found on the beaches by Noia Limpa. Many more of the plastic beads that emerged from punctured bags wreaked havoc on the local ecosystems.

"The first complaints came in mid-December. People started sending us photos on Instagram of the bags on Espiñeirido beach," Madison Hourihan, founder and director of Noia Limpa, told local newspaper 20 Minutos. "When information began to reach us from other points on the coast, we found that there were many more pellets."

These pellets are used to make a variety of plastic products and are designed to melt down into a liquid to be molded into another shape. They are usually less than 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) across and are very difficult to remove from the environment in case of a spillage, given their lightweight nature. Every year, 230,000 metric tons of these nurdles are thought to enter the oceans, where they are the second largest microplastic source.

The nurdles are prone to soaking up chemical pollutants and toxins from their environment, as well as being host to bacteria including E. coli and Vibrio species, which can be disastrous if they end up being eaten by marine animals.

"Nurdles are tough and can stick around for a really long time," Ian Williams, a professor of applied environmental science at the U.K.'s University of Southampton, told Newsweek. "They don't easily break down, and as they age, they turn into even smaller bits of plastic called microplastics, which can be even harder to get rid of. To make things worse, nurdles can soak up harmful chemicals from the water."

He went on: "Chemicals leaching from plastics can change the mix of microbial life in seawater and harm the microscopic life forms that are critical to oxygen production in our oceans. The chemicals that leach into seawater from plastic waste can disrupt microbes that form an essential part of the marine food web." Williams explained.

Williams said this can have a cascading effect on the entire ecosystem, "as the food web is disrupted and the population of marine animals that depend on them for survival dwindles. The chemicals leaching from plastics can also harm larger marine animals that consume the microorganisms, as well as those that consume plastic directly."

This may severely affect residents, as "the local economy is based on seafood and sea fishing," Hourihan said.

The bags of nurdles were marked with the name of the Polish company Bedeko Europe and were traveling on a Liberian container ship, according to 20 Minutos. Several containers fell off the ship into the sea on December 6 as it was passing the coast of Portugal. One of these containers contained bags of these pellets, which have since floated toward land and coated the beaches of Galicia, an area in northern Spain.

Despite the scale of the disaster, Noia Limpa is struggling to get permission to remove the pellets from the beaches.

"We cannot go to the beaches to clean. We need a permit from the competent administrations, which in this case are the town councils themselves," Hourihan said. "We are a very small association, made up of only four people and with hardly any resources, so we decided to contact other larger groups to help us."

Local authorities need the local government, Xunta de Galicia, and the national government to allocate resources for the cleanup, but no moves have yet been made to remove the pellets. Environmental group Adega has criticized the government's lack of action and called for an urgent response to the accumulating plastic on the coast.

In the meantime, Noia Limpa plans to gather volunteers to clean the beaches. Newsweek has contacted the group for comment by email.

Because of the difficulty in cleaning up a nurdle spill, it may take some time.

"They are a bad form of pollution," Melanie Bergmann, a senior scientist and microplastic expert at the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research, told Newsweek.

"As with other microplastics, they are very difficult if not impossible to clean up, especially large spills like the one that occurred after the sinking of the X-Press Pearl cargo ship off Sri Lanka's west coast in May 2021," Bergmann said.

"They are almost impossible to clean as they are so small and you would invariably remove a lot of other organisms, sand and other matter as well," she continued. "I am not sure what technologies are available and technically mature enough to do this efficiently at this stage. Certain technologies did not prove to be up to the job in Sri Lanka, for example."

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