Contaminated Plastic Pellets Wash Ashore on Sri Lanka Beaches
ByMalaka Rodrigo
Authorities in Sri Lanka say they have largely contained a fire on board a cargo ship off the island’s west coast, but now face the task of cleaning up the tons of plastic granules it was carrying that have washed up along a wide swath of the coast.
Compounding the scale of the environmental hazard is the possibility that the pellets, known as nurdles, are contaminated with chemicals from the ship, the Singapore-flagged X-Press Pearl.
The ship, newly commissioned in March this year, caught fire on May 21 shortly after leaving western India bound for Singapore. The fire broke out as it was anchored off Colombo, awaiting permission to unload Sri Lanka-bound cargo, but was brought under significant control by May 30 with help from India, authorities said.
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A major oil spill and debris from a burning container ship have covered Sri Lankan beaches off the west coast. Sri Lankan authorities said the container ship MV X-Press Pearl, registered with a shipping company all the way from Singapore, had already leaked of nitric acid out of its vessel just before it set sail in Sri Lankan waters.