\u00c9CAUSSINNESD\u2019ENGHIEN, BELGIUM
\nBuried in the soil, dotting riverbanks and bobbing along streams: a small Belgian town has waged a years-long fight against creeping pollution from plastic pellets \u2014 which the EU now has in its sights.
\nA spectacular spill of microplastics on Spain\u2019s Galician coast cast a spotlight on the problem late last year, after a container filled with \u201cnurdles\u201d fell from a cargo ship and its contents washed ashore.The images of locals sifting through the sand to weed out the tiny polluting pellets felt all too familiar in Ecaussinnes.
\nThe small countryside town is home to Belgium\u2019s second largest petrochemical complex, and microplastic pollution has been a problem here for decades. \u201cWe find them around industrial sites, in the waterways as far as eight kilometres (five miles) downstream,\u201d explained Arnaud Guerard, a local government official in charge of environmental matters.
\n\u201cThey burrow into riverbanks, and depending on rainfall they end up on agricultural land.\u201d About the size of a lentil and made from fossil fuels, nurdles \u2014 or pre-production plastic pellets \u2014 are a little-known building block used to manufacture nearly all plastic products.
\nAccording to European Commission data, up to 184,000 tonnes of pellets per year \u2014 the equivalent of 20 truckloads each day \u2014 are dispersed into the environment across the 27-nation EU. At the local level, Guerard blames pollution in Ecaussinnes on \u201cdysfunction\u201d in the industrial zone where the French giant TotalEnergies produces more than a million tonnes of the pellets per year.
\nStored in huge silos, they are transported by three logistics firms based nearby, whose workers cart around huge open-topped bags filled with nurdles \u2014 which Guerard says causes many to spill out. TotalEnergies says it has taken \u201cnumerous preventive steps\u201d to rectify the situation: using a watertight pipeline to move pellets between sites, a giant blower to clear them from the outside of trucks, and regular cleanings and inspections.
\nLucie Padovani, of the Surfrider Foundation environmental group, said the pellets are responsible for \u201cinsidious and chronic pollution throughout Europe, with spillage at every stage\u201d: production, road and maritime transport, and inappropriate storage.Once out in nature, nurdles \u201care extremely hard to recover: they are non-biodegradable and will break down into even smaller micro-particles,\u201d said Natacha Tullis, of the Pew Charitable Trust.
\n\u201cThis has a pretty serious impact on the environment.\u201dNurdles can be ingested by aquatic life, creating a risk of invisible pollution that releases toxic chemicals right up the food chain, she says.
\nIn Ecaussinnes, authorities have set up filtering dams on streams \u2014 but at the risk of also killing amphibians.
\nAfter 16 years of complaints from local residents and accumulating evidence of pollution, the town tried first to set up a dialogue with the companies involved \u2014 but ultimately resorted to legal action, which is ongoing.\u201dThese companies don\u2019t admit their responsibility,\u201d said Guerard, who wants tougher regulation to tackle the problem.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s no reason this harm should be paid for by the community, when they have the means to act to prevent pollution.\u201dIn October the European Commission put forward a proposal aimed at reducing pellet spillage \u2014 by forcing large companies to assess risks, and toughen both preventative and clean-up measures.
\nBut advocates say the legislation \u2014 which has yet to be negotiated by member states and lawmakers \u2014 falls short as it stands.\u201dIt won\u2019t be enough to stem pollution,\u201d said Padovani, who worries it does not apply to small and medium-sized businesses who make up much of the plastic manufacturing chain, nor to maritime transport.
\nThe Belgian EU lawmaker Saskia Bricmont is among those pushing for tougher legislation.\u201dInitiatives taken on a voluntary basis are not enough,\u201d she told media. \u201cWe see that in Ecaussinnes, where there is no systematic clean-up, and no due diligence.\u201d
\nIn the meantime, Bricmont hopes a separate law on environmental crimes, set for final approval from the European Parliament on Tuesday, could enable sanctions against the negligent behaviour behind the nurdle blight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00c9CAUSSINNESD\u2019ENGHIEN, BELGIUM Buried in the soil, dotting riverbanks and bobbing along streams: a small Belgian town has waged a years-long fight against creeping pollution from plastic pellets \u2014 which the EU now has in its sights. A spectacular spill of microplastics on Spain\u2019s Galician coast cast a spotlight on the problem late last year, after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390120,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-390097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n