PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - Research conducted along Plettenberg Bay's Nature's Valley Beach has revealed that plastic is the main thorn in the side of those attempting to eradicate marine pollution.
The Nature's Valley Trust releases a monthly report on marine debris found along the beach and during June found the biggest marine pollution culprit was plastic – especially micro plastic pieces and nurdles (small plastic pellets).
"Once again, we have compiled our top 10 most interesting finds of June to highlight what should potentially be the main targets for awareness and cleanup efforts," the NVT team said.
NVT volunteers found 2 883 micro plastic pieces and 1 343 nurdles on the beach. A further 129 plastic pieces were discovered during the course of the month.
Other debris found included 106 cigarette butts, 28 food wrappers, 12 metal bottle caps, 12 pieces of strings, seven lollipop sticks, two Band-Aids and even a pair of underpants.
"With the care, interest, and attention from our followers received for our May post as well as the fine-tuning of this project, we have decided to invest more time into the marine debris project… In addition to the more time added, we have also had two more helping hands for the team out in the field.
Although further additions and improvements, alongside an enhanced skill for spotting minuscule nurdles, have contributed to the high contrasts in numbers, we would like to still display the statistics with great seriousness in bringing awareness to the reality of beach pollution," the team said.
They also compared the numbers to the previous month's and found 1.6 times more cigarette butts in June, three times more plastic pieces, 3.5 times more food wrappers, more than four times more nurdles and nearly five times more micro plastic pieces.
"As suspected from our last post on more nurdles hidden in the sand, our most recent statistics of 4.3 more nurdles found (compared to the previous month) proves the issue may truly be greater – just hidden. Nurdles are the smallest forms of plastic, in which it is shipped around the world to be turned into the products we use," the team said.
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