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.
Ishara S. Kodikara / AFP via Getty Images
Originally published on June 2, 2021 1:21 pm
A cargo ship carrying chemicals and plastic pellets has been burning off the coast of Sri Lanka for nearly two weeks. Now, efforts to tow the ship to deeper waters have failed – and the boat sinking looks increasingly likely.
The ship, the X-Press Pearl, was carrying 1,486 containers. Eighty-one of those were dangerous goods containers, including 25 tons of nitric acid. At least one container has leaked nitric acid.
Infrared footage over the weekend showed that the fire has mostly died out.
X-Press Feeders, the cargo ship company, said Wednesday that it regret[s] to report that despite salvors successfully boarding the vessel and attaching a tow wire, efforts to move the ship to deeper waters have failed. The ship s stern is now touching bottom, the company said.
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