Nurdles, a colloquial term for the plastic pellets, are the raw material used for nearly all plastic products. Lentil-sized, at between 1-5mm, and thus potentially classifying as microplastics, or fragments smaller than 5mm, they can be devastating to wildlife, especially fish, shrimps and seabirds that mistake them for food. They also act as “toxic sponges” attracting so-called forever chemicals such as PCBs and PFAs in seawater on to their surfaces, and also carry harmful bacteria such as E coli.

“When ingested by marine life, these pellets introduce a cocktail of toxins directly into the food web,” says Joseph Vijayan, an environmental researcher from Thiruvananthapuram. “Toxins can accumulate in individual animals and increase in concentration up the food chain, ultimately affecting humans who consume seafood.”

The spill’s location and timing could not have been worse, Vijayan says. Nearly half of India’s seafish are landed in the Malabar upwelling region, where the shipwreck happened.

“The nurdles haven’t just polluted the sea – they’ve disrupted our entire way of life,” says Ajith Shanghumukham, a fish worker in the town.

Following the Keralan spill, there have been reports of nurdles once again washing up on beaches in Sri Lanka, a reminder of the worst recorded plastic pollution spill in history when the X-Press Pearl container ship, carrying chemicals, caught fire and released 1,680 tonnes of nurdles into the sea off Colombo in 2021.

The Kerala disaster, the latest in a series of pellet spills, has again exposed huge gaps in accountability, transparency and regulation in the plastics supply chain, environmentalists say.