The M/V X-Press Pearl Nurdle Spill: Contamination of Burnt Plastic and Unburnt Nurdles along Sri Lanka's Beaches

Abstract

In May 2021, the M/V X-Press Pearl cargo ship caught fire 18 km off the west coast of Sri Lanka and spilled ∼1680 tons of spherical pieces of plastic or "nurdles" (∼5 mm; white in color). Nurdles are the preproduction plastic used to manufacture a wide range of end products. Exposure to combustion, heat, and chemicals led to agglomeration, fragmentation, charring, and chemical modification of the plastic, creating an unprecedented complex spill of visibly burnt plastic and unburnt nurdles. These pieces span a continuum of colors, shapes, sizes, and densities with high variability that could impact cleanup efforts, alter transport in the ocean, and potentially affect wildlife. Visibly burnt plastic was 3-fold more chemically complex than visibly unburnt nurdles. This added chemical complexity included combustion-derived polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. A portion of the burnt material contained petroleum-derived biomarkers, indicating that it encountered some fossil-fuel products during the spill. The findings of this research highlight the added complexity caused by the fire and subsequent burning of plastic for cleanup operations, monitoring, and damage assessment and provides recommendations to further understand and combat the impacts of this and future spills.

Figure 1

Travel route of the M/V X-Press Pearl leading up to the spill (A) and map of crowd-sourced nurdle sightings collated by Oceanswell between May 29 to July 11, 2021 (B). Photographs of (C) the ship after sinking taken on July 10 (photo credit: Conor Bolas, ITOPF), of (D) burnt plastic and unburnt nurdles that washed ashore onto Pamunugama beach, and of (E) a handful of them both; photographs were taken on May 25. Full-sized photographs are available in Figures S1 and S2.

Figure 2

Recovered plastic spanned a continuum from white unburnt nurdles to black burnt plastic (A). Comparison of the projected perimeter and mass for a sampling of the burnt plastic and unburnt nurdles (B). Histograms of the mass distribution for a sampling of unburnt nurdles (C) and of burnt plastic (D). For these analyses, degraded nurdles and burnt plastic were combined because this analysis intended to show the variability of the plastic along the burnt nurdle continuum. These measurements should not be considered exhaustive; for instance, the plastic that was exposed to fire can be larger than represented here; see Figure S2.

Figure 3

GC×GC-FID chromatograms of dichloromethane-extractable material from unburnt nurdles, 400 peaks (A), burnt plastic, 1000 peaks (B), and combustion remnant, 1300 peaks (C). Each chromatogram is scaled to itself. Details of the features are annotated in the Supporting Information.

Figure 4

Concerns and potential impacts following the M/V X-Press Pearl nurdle spill.

Figure 5

Burnt plastic (A) looks similar to natural materials common to beaches such as soil (B), wood (C), and seagrass (D).