Spain is investigating the contamination of its Atlantic coast by millions of plastic pellets believed to have escaped from a ship, mainly affecting regions of Galicia and Asturias.
advertisementMillions of tiny plastic pellets have washed up on the beaches of northern Spain, prompting local authorities to declare an environmental emergency on Tuesday.
Authorities believe the plastic came from a shipping container that fell off a ship last month.
The regional governments of Galicia and neighboring Asturias, which are bearing the brunt of the pollution, have asked Spain’s central government for help. On Monday, Spanish state prosecutors opened an investigation.
Prosecutors are concerned that the pellets may contain toxic substances, and said there was evidence that pellets had also been found on French beaches.
“These little plastic balls are an environmental problem because fish confuse them with fish eggs, eat them, enter the food chain, and end up on our plates,” says Spain’s Environment. said Cristóbal López, a spokesperson for the group Ecologista en Acción. Associated Press from a beach in Galicia.
The leak was first reported to authorities on December 13, when hundreds of thousands of tiny white balls began washing up on Spain’s Atlantic coast.
The Spanish government representative in Galicia announced that the container ship Toconao, flying the Liberian flag, lost six shipping containers off the coast of Portugal, about 80 kilometers west of Viana do Castelo.
Government representatives said one of the six containers contained 1,000 bags of pellets, and each bag contained 25 kilograms of small plastic balls used to make plastic products. .
Greenpeace and other environmental groups estimate the total amount of pellets lost to be in the millions. They say the pellets are dangerous to oceans and human life because they break down into even smaller microplastics, which can then be ingested by fish caught by fishermen.
“Pollution of our oceans and ecosystems with plastic is one of the biggest problems facing humanity,” said Teresa Rivera, Spain’s Minister of the Environment. “Therefore, a spill of such significant amounts of plastic requires close monitoring to determine whether transport and shipping companies took appropriate precautions.”
Volunteers and workers are organizing to clean beaches and coastlines in the region, which relies on a large seafood industry. Galicia’s coastline was devastated in 2002 by an oil spill from the tanker He Prestige.