Beach cleanups are all about clearing waste from coastlines - but when plastic spills are as large as the one off the coast of France and Spain, it can be near impossible to clean it all.
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Unlike oil spills, plastic spills fly well under the radar. Somewhere between 700 and 1,300 shipping containers are lost at sea every year, making it 'just part of the job'. Oftentimes these containers don't cause widespread issues, but experts believe one (or more) of these rogue containers is to blame for the large quantities of small white beads suddenly appearing on European coastlines.
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Tiny white pellets measuring less than 1.5mm have been washing up on the shores of France and Spain for the better part of a year. Officials are taking action, but efforts are close to hopeless. With no idea where the beads came from, how long they have been floating in the ocean, or who manufactured them, it's hard to hold those responsible accountable. Cleanup efforts are also limited - as the tiny granules have to be collected piece by piece over hundreds of miles of coastline.
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While no one likes to hear about microplastic disasters, it's far from the first time this has happened. Annually, an estimated 230,000 metric tons of plastic beads are lost globally, with more than half being lost in the EU. In 2018, the Cornish Plastic Pollution Coalition even coined the term "bio-bead pollution" and studied the negative effects they have on ecosystems.
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Read more about the bead spill:
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Graphic shows a white bead amongst seagrass. The factoid reads: "An estimated 230,000 metric tons of industrial plastic pellets are lost globally every year."
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