Plastic Nurdle Spill From Sunken Cargo Ship Reaches Tamil Nadu, Raises Alarm
A plastic nurdle spill from the sunken cargo ship MSC ELSA 3 has spread into the newly declared Dhanushkodi Greater Flamingo Sanctuary in Ramanathapuram district, threatening one of India's most fragile coastal ecosystems.
The MSC ELSA 3, a Liberian-flagged vessel, sank off the Kochi coast a few weeks ago while carrying 640 containers, including 13 with hazardous materials, 12 with calcium carbide, 367 tonnes of furnace oil, and 84 tonnes of diesel.
The ship's cargo manifest remains undisclosed, fuelling speculation about the full extent of environmental risk.
Dhanushkodi Sanctuary, located within the Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve, supports 128 species of birds -- including Greater and Lesser Flamingos -- and is home to sea turtles, crustaceans, molluscs, and fish. Its dunes, marshes, and seagrass beds form part of the Central Asian Flyway for migratory birds.
The nurdles -- tiny plastic pellets used in industrial manufacturing -- resemble fish eggs and can be deadly to marine life. When ingested, they cause internal blockages, starvation, and often death. They also absorb toxins, entering the food chain and posing long-term health hazards.
About 80 bags, each weighing 25 kilograms, have reportedly washed ashore along a 12-km coastal stretch. Affected sites include the Dhanushkodi old church, Irattaithalai, Mugandharayan Chathiram, Gothanda Ramar temple, and Patchappatti village.
Carried by ocean currents from the Thiruvananthapuram-Kanniyakumari coast, the spill now threatens the adjacent Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park, home to vital coral reefs and seagrass beds.
Experts warn these habitats could be smothered by plastic debris, blocking sunlight and disrupting photosynthesis.
Ramanathapuram District Collector Simranjeet Singh Kahlon said, "We've identified between 15 and 30 nurdle bags along the coast. A special team has been deployed for cleanup, and additional teams are monitoring for further debris."
He urged the public not to panic, stating that swift action was underway.
The disaster evokes memories of the 2021 X-Press Pearl incident in Sri Lanka, where 1,680 tonnes of nurdles led to mass marine deaths and crippled fisheries.
Studies showed severe impacts on plankton and larval life forms, threatening entire food chains.
Cleanup efforts in Ramanathapuram face challenges due to the nurdles' buoyancy and small size, worsened by monsoon waves that break them into microplastics.
With the 61-day annual fishing ban nearing its end, fishermen fear reduced fish catches and consumer hesitancy could harm their livelihoods if the spill worsens.
Environmentalists are calling for urgent intervention, cargo transparency, and long-term containment measures to prevent irreversible damage to one of India's most critical marine ecosystems.
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For the past three weeks, large stretches of the beaches in Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala have been glistening after tonnes and tonnes of plastic nurdles, or pellets, which are extremely hard to remove, washed up on the shores. The nurdles of two to three millimetres in size and white in colour washed ashore in Kerala in May (HT photo) Barely two to three millimetres in size and white in colour, the nurdles, a foundational material in the manufacture of a wide variety of plastic products, are among the environmental after effects of the sinking of the Liberia-flagged cargo vessel MSC ELSA 3 around 14 nautical miles away from Kerala's coast on May 25. While all the 24 foreign crew onboard were rescued by the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard, the vessel along with all the cargo have sunk into the Arabian Sea. 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He said the panchayat deputed volunteers on the first day of the cleaning operations and the shipping firm later tied up with the salvage company and hired professional personnel to complete the task. 'At least 500 sacks of pellets have been collected so far from the beaches in our panchayat alone. There are tons left. A few dozen cleaning personnel are out every day filtering the pellets from the sand and taking them away from the coast. The operation will take a lot of time,' Wahid told HT over the phone. A situation report of the Directorate General of Shipping on June 25 stated that the first batch of 18.5 metric tonnes of pellets washed up on the coast has been transported and secured at the MERC warehouse within Kollam port. 'The situation underscores the potential for continued wash-up of nurdles and packaging materials along the coastline in the coming days. 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The cargo manifest includes items like naphthalene, trichlorobenzene, paint, liquid pesticides, and flammable solids, all of which are marine pollutants, she said. 'Since there was a fire on the ship, the possibility of the chemicals leaking into the sea exists. The truth is that we still don't know what sort of hazardous cargo has fallen into the sea and leaked into the water. Some chemicals are organic in nature and can destroy phytoplankton, the basic food source of the fishes. Additionally, it's also the breeding season right now and eggs and larvae won't be able to escape the effects of the chemicals. This will have a direct impact on the fisheries resource and in the long term, upset the economy and harm the coastal communities,' said Prof Gopinath. 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The state recorded 581,000 tonnes of fish production from the sea in 2023-24, a drop from the 690,000 tonnes the previous year. The back-to-back ship incidents have aggravated the crisis in the fisheries sector by imposing restrictions on fishing in a particular belt where the ELSA ship sank and propelling fears about chemical leakage into the marine ecosystem, they say. Charles George, state president of the Kerala Matsya Thozhilali Aikya Vedi, a fishworkers' labour union, said thousands of fisherfolk have lost work days due to the MSC ELSA 3 sinking which have not been appropriately compensated by the government. 'The ship sank near the Quilon Bank, a big fishing bank with precious marine wealth extending around 84 kilometres in length and about 30-32 nautical miles wide. It's a region where over 1,000 fibre boats, 500 trawl boats and over 100 inboard canoes operate. There are no marks or signs installed in the region to warn fishers about floating containers. As a result, many groups saw their fishing nets getting torn by the containers. Each net costs around ₹10 lakh,' said George. He said the state government's relief to fishworkers and their families in the form of free rations and ₹1,000 per family was meagre and inadequate for the loss of livelihood during the period. George said he would file a petition in the high court soon demanding an independent expert committee to study the ecological damage caused by the two shipping incidents. 'As per the 1992 civil liability convention, a case should have been registered against the shipping company by the coastal police and the captain arrested for negligent navigation. But the state government sees the shipping company MSC and the Adani group's Vizhinjam port as its patrons and acts according to their interests. There have been several lapses by the government,' he said. According to a statement on May 29 by state government's chief secretary A Jayathilak after a meeting between chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the MSC shipping officials, the state does not intend to file a criminal case immediately as MSC is a 'reputed company which patronises the Vizhinjam international seaport and the company requires the goodwill of Kerala for their operations here'. An FIR was registered by the Fort Kochi coastal police against the MSC vessel for rash navigation and negligent conduct involving transportation of poisonous substances only on June 11, two weeks after the ship capsized. Lack of protocol, inefficient PCB: Activists Despite building a great deal of infrastructure around the two major ports of Cochin and Vizhinjam, the state government has failed in developing a protocol to tackle marine pollution when shipping accidents occur, said Sridhar Ramakrishnan, an environmental observer. 'In 2015-16, there was an effort by the State to develop a protocol for marine pollution. It was supposed to be done by the state Pollution Control Board (PCB). At the time, they called for tenders and expert teams to develop the protocol. But nothing has happened. They sat on it. As a result, the State didn't know how to handle the situation initially (when the MSC vessel sank),' said Ramakrishnan. The environmentalist said the PCB even initially said the plastic nurdles were 'harmless' and did not consider the marine pollution impact. 'It shows how bad our institutions are. We have a useless PCB whose officials have not been pulled up by the State for their inefficiencies,' he said. Harish Vasudevan, a lawyer intervening in environmental issues in the high court and the National Green Tribunal (NGT), called the PCB a 'white elephant' which was not being made accountable for the pollution caused on the state's coast. 'When will the PCB improve? It must be taught a lesson. Why does the PCB not have a protocol or SoP to use when such accidents happen?' Vasudevan asked in a Facebook post. Questions regarding the steps taken so far to tackle marine pollution in the backdrop of the two shipping accidents were emailed to the PCB but no one responded till the filing of this report.
