Ecaussinnesdd: Buried in soil, dotting riverbanks and swaying along streams: the small Belgian town has waged a years-long battle against creeping plastic pellet pollution – which is now in the EU’s crosshairs.
A spectacular microplastic spill off Spain’s Galician coast shed light on the problem late last year after a container filled with “nurdles” fell from a cargo ship and its contents washed ashore.
Images of local residents sifting through sand to fill tiny polluting pellets felt all too familiar in Ecaussinnes.
The small country town is home to Belgium’s second largest petrochemical complex and microplastic pollution has been a problem here for decades.
“We find them around industrial sites, in waterways up to eight kilometers (five miles) downstream,” explained Arnaud Guerard, a local government official in charge of environmental affairs.
“They burrow into riverbanks and depending on rainfall, they end up on farmland.”
About the size of a lens and made from fossil fuels, nurdles – or pre-production plastic pellets – are a little-known building block used to make almost all plastic products.
According to data from the European Commission, up to 184,000 tonnes of pellets are dispersed into the environment in 27 EU countries per year – the equivalent of 20 lorries per day.
Locally, Guerard blames the pollution in Ecaussinnes on “dysfunction” in the industrial zone, where French giant TotalEnergies produces more than a million tonnes of pellets a year.
They are stored in huge silos and transported by three logistics firms based nearby, whose workers carry around huge open-top bags filled with noodles – which Guerard says cause many to spill.
TotalEnergies says it has taken “numerous preventative steps” to remedy the situation: using waterproof pipes to move pellets between sites, a giant blower to clean them from the outside of trucks, and regular cleaning and inspections.
Lucie Padovani of the environmental group Surfrider Foundation said the pellets were responsible for “insidious and chronic pollution across Europe, with leakage at every stage”: production, road and sea transport and inappropriate storage.
Once in nature, nurdles “are extremely difficult to recover: they are not biodegradable and break down into even smaller microparticles,” said Natacha Tullis of the Pew Charitable Trust.
“That has a pretty serious impact on the environment.”
Nurdles can be ingested by aquatic life, creating an invisible pollution risk that releases toxic chemicals directly into the food chain, he says.
In Ecaussinnes, the authorities have set up filter dams on the streams – but at the risk of killing the amphibians as well.
After 16 years of complaints from local residents and gathering evidence of the pollution, the city first tried to engage in dialogue with the companies involved – but eventually resorted to ongoing litigation.
“These companies are not admitting their responsibility,” said Guerard, who wants the problem to be solved through stricter regulation.
“There is no reason why the community should pay for this damage when they have the means to prevent pollution.”
In October, the European Commission presented a proposal aimed at reducing pellet leaks – by forcing large companies to assess risks and tighten both preventive and remedial measures.
But advocates say the legislation – which has yet to be debated by member states and lawmakers – falls short in its current form.
“It won’t be enough to stop pollution,” said Padovani, who worries that it won’t cover small and medium-sized businesses, which make up a large part of the plastic production chain, or shipping.
Belgian MEP Saskia Bricmont is among those pushing for stricter legislation.
“Initiatives taken on a voluntary basis are not enough,” she told AFP. “We see this in Ecaussinnes, where there is no systematic cleaning and no proper care.”
Meanwhile, Bricmont hopes that a separate law on environmental crimes, due to be finally approved by the European Parliament on Tuesday, could allow for sanctions against the negligent behavior behind the nurdle mold.
