PROJECT

Swan River Nurdles

Swan River nurdles - sources, sinks and fate

Supervisors

Students

  • Radu Alecsa
  • Chelsea Xu

Project Description

Pre-production (virgin) plastic pellets are known as nurdles and are now quite ubiquitous in coastal environments, often found along our beaches and rivers, even in the most pristine of regions of the world. Billions of these lentil-sized pellets escape into the environment each year before they have a chance to be molded into something of use. Our Swan River has not escaped such events, with tens of thousands of nurdles being found in shoreline clean ups. A recent clean up event support by Tangaroa Blue, saw thousands of different coloured nurdles tapped in tidal inundated vegetation along the Swan River. Anecdotal evidence suggests that these nurdles are being transport to the river system through stormwater drains from the any of the numerous plastic manufacturers in the Perth metropolitan area, however the actual sources and transportation process is unknown, making it hard to hold those responsible accountable or to implement appropriate pollution mitigation strategies. Furthermore, understanding the fate of these nurdles is paramount to understanding the cumulative impact of their escape in our rivers and oceans.

This research project will involve investigations into the sources and sinks of nurdles in the Swan River, and what is the fate of the nurdles if they remain trapped in the system. This will require chemical characterization of the plastic pellets, understanding the movement of nurdles and plastic degradation processes.