More than a dozen of volunteer came to Rotary Park in Carlsbad on Saturday to help clean up tiny plastic pellets, often called nurdles. The cleanup is part of the second-annual International Plastic Pellet Count, intended to help document the extent of plastic pollution across the globe. One of t he volunteers was Janice Jones with the Surfrider Foundation San Diego Chapter. As the head of the Plastic Pollution Program, Jones has been involved in similar cleanup efforts and initiatives over the last 7 years. However, Jones has been cleaning up beaches in Carlsbad for more than a decade. “At the beginning you’d see litter maybe, stuff that people had left behind and attribute it to careless beachgoers,” said Jones. “But over time, it became more and more apparent that it was a huge problem,” said Jones. Saturday’s cleanup was part of nearly 200 others that took place at different sites around the world. Volunteers had 10 minutes to collect as many nurdles as possible. While the goal was to clean up the neighborhood, the timer was to standardize the data being collected across the globe. By compiling the data, analysts can determine hotspots for plastic pollution. Volunteers focused their search near the railroad tracks. As Fiona Hynes, a legislative advocate with California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG) explains, the nurdles come from the trains that carry cargo. “We have a plastic production facility in San Diego where some of them are shipped from to other places in California to make our plastic goods and so that’s how they become a pollutant in this area,” said Hynes. “We know when things spill, they often eventually make their way into our ocean because of the way water drainage works,” Hynes added. Nurdles were also cause for a lawsuit that was settled in February between BNSF Railway and San Diego Coastkeeper. As part of the settlement, BNSF implemented nationwide policies to ensure that railcars are properly sealed so nurdles don’t spill out during transport. Hynes said the count could provide information on whether those policies are being followed. Hynes notes that nurdles are more than just plastic litter — the pellets can also absorb toxins and potentially make their way into the food chain. “Because of the way they’re shaped they can absorb toxic chemicals at really high rates and then when they go into our ocean ecosystems, animals eat them and then so fish are absorbing them and likely they’re coming up to the food chain to also pollute our own bodies,” said Hynes. California Congressman Mike Levin, who represents the state’s 49th District, including North County, reintroduced the Plastic Pellet Free Waters Act in February. If approved, the legislation would require the Environmental Protection Agency to issue a final rule banning certain discharges of plastic pellets and other preproduction plastics into waters of the United States, according to a bill summary. Volunteers were able to collect just shy of 700 nurdles as part of the cleanup. For a full lists of events and an interactive map detailing the count initiative, you can visit PIRG’s website. ...read more read less