Environment

Cleanup underway after plastic pellets wash up on northern Spain beaches

Madrid, Jan 10 (EFE).- A large cleanup operation was underway Wednesday on beaches along Spain’s northern coast after millions of tiny plastic pellets were spilled by a cargo vessel, raising fears of an environmental disaster.

Workers from the central Ministry for the Ecological Transition joined locals and volunteers on the Spanish coast, one day after the regional governments of Galicia and Asturias issued alerts to trigger assistance and more resources from the Spanish state.

The spill occurred on Dec. 8 when the Toconao, a Liberian-flagged vessel operated by Danish company Maersk, lost six containers off the northern coast of Portugal.

One of the containers held over 1,000, 25-kilogram sacks of non-biodegradable plastic pellets, which are used to make plastic products.

The European Commission has warned that the “25 tons of plastic pellets that spilled on the Galician coast threaten the marine environment and economic activities like fishing,” Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius said Wednesday.

The issue has sparked a political row between the Galician regional government – helmed by the conservative People’s Party – and the Socialist-led central government in Madrid.

The first pellets were seen washing up on the Galician coast on Dec. 13, but regional authorities didn’t issue a plan until Jan. 5.

Portuguese officials have confirmed to EFE that they alerted their Spanish colleagues of the issue on Dec. 8, the day of the spill.

“We would like to know what happened from that moment until Jan. 3, which was the first official communication the Galician government received on the matter,” Galicia’s environment minister Angeles Vazquez said Tuesday.

She also pushed back against claims from Madrid that the Galician government was aware of the issue on Dec. 13 through emergency calls from members of the public.

“The (Galician government) receives an average of 2,600 emergency calls per day. Of those, multiplied by 365 days, about 1,500 are related to waste. There is a protocol (…) to transfer it to the competent body, to Spain’s Maritime Safety and Rescue Society (Sasemar), which is dependent on the state,” Vazquez explained.

Vazquez pointed out that only 10% of the 1,000 sacks had been collected so far, adding that sea currents were pushing the pellets further along Spain’s northern coast and could even reach France.

Spain’s Minister for the Ecological Transition Teresa Ribera said in a post on X on Monday that she had “conveyed the government’s availability to help.”

“Our teams are prepared to respond as soon as requested,” she said.

Meanwhile, Galicia’s president Alfonso Rueda on Tuesday said hundreds of the spilled sacks had not yet reached the shore and that there was “still time” to collect them.

Rueba urged that “work be done at sea so that these sacks do not reach the coast, which is the State’s responsibility.” EFEnac/vm-ks

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