Podcast: So how big is a nurdle?

Intro:
So with me today, I brought Elizabeth Cute back, senior program manager. We’re going to talk to her about the most wonderful, horrible, great, useful, problematic thing known as plastic.  

Here’s something that’s so ubiquitous for humans. We interact with it daily in our products, like electronics. There’s multiple studies that talk about how you can find traces of it in humans and animals because we’ve ingested it in some fashion.  

There’s a lot of plastics. So I brought Liz on today. You think about plastics a lot for BNW.  

Elizabeth: I do think about plastics a lot. You’re correct. Too much.  

Adam: It’s a big part maybe, but it’s good because we have it, and that’s something BNW is focusing on and we’re constantly talking about it. Is there a spot within the plastic realm you’d like to start?  

Elizabeth: Yeah, I’ll actually start with where organizationally we kind of started focusing more specifically on one type of plastic. We’ve been doing cleanups and litter pick ups for 35 years since our origin as an organization, but we’ve more recently started collecting specific data and nurdles was one of those examples of a specific type of plastic that really got our attention.  

And it got my attention when I was along the Niagara River at Gratwick Park a spring maybe five or so years ago, just checking out conditions, doing a little litter cleanup on my own, probably on a morning off or something like that. Beautiful spot. You know, I get my drinking water from the river.  

And I saw a ton of these little plastic pellets. Whenever you find something in that quantity, it’s a little odd. So I took pictures. I was trying to figure out, all right, ‘what are these little plastic pellets, the size of a lentil’ and something maybe in the back of my mind from a conference or a webinar, you know, oh, these are nurdles, knew exactly what they were after a minute and oh, they’re here. There’s so many.  

How did they get here? And I’m trying to connect all the dots and figure it out. So this kind of brought it down a rabbit hole. And then we went and actually started to get volunteers to collect data on them.  

So that’s kind of like where it all started.  

Adam: So the nurdles, they’re being shipped here primarily. And, so I do want to jump back on one thing. When I started here, that’s when I first heard of nurdles.  

Elizabeth: Yeah. Fun word.  

Adam: Yeah, I do like the word a lot. Nurdle.  

Elizabeth: My husband will call me a nurd-le. And I’m a nerd: about plastic, which I’m like, ‘that’s fine.’  

Adam: Now, when I first heard of them, they would be described as, as you just said, the size of a lentil. And this is a me – an Adam – problem. I can’t picture a lentil. And I look at it and I remember going, “what is a lentil size?” 

Elizabeth: Half a grain of rice, maybe, is another option. (laughs).  

Adam: So I can picture that. And that’s how small these things are. And that’s what you were seeing washing up on the shore at that time. So producers that want these, they’re grabbing these little tiny, half grains of rice or lentil sized things to use, and in the process, what’s happening? So they’re shipping it up here. What’s happening then that they get in the environment?  

Adam: It started just by kind of a chance: you were out on the water at Gratwick Park and you see that and that hadn’t really been on the radar for BNW.  

Elizabeth: Not specifically nurdles. Plastic pollution in general. But this specific type of plastic product, the building blocks of plastic items wasn’t necessarily locally on our radar.  

It’s a huge problem in Texas and in the south where Nurdles are mainly produced out of fossil fuels and they’ve polluted other waterways and there’s other keeper groups really focused on it, more of like where the nurdles are being created and then polluting the environment.  

But they get shipped up here to New York for blow-molding or injection molding processes. So plastic manufacturers buy them and they’re getting mostly road transported here. But there’s spaces where they’re shipped on the ocean, maybe the Great Lakes or via train in some locations in the U.S.  

So we just started to peel back the layers of: how are they getting here? How did they get to the river shoreline? Just trying to figure out this whole scenario. And it’s been an interesting several years, with more and more every year learning more and doing more.  

Elizabeth: So they’re getting shipped from mainly Texas down where a lot of fossil fuels are being taken out of the Earth – the oil – and being made into these building blocks of plastic products and they’re created into these tiny little pellets because they’re easy to pack into shipping containers. They fill up every little space easier than shipping a solid block of plastic. That would be cumbersome.  

So all these little nurdles can fill up a giant silo on site of a manufacturer or poured into a machine hopper to then be melted down into whatever they’re making. You can add colorants, different chemical additives to make the plastic flexible or stiff or, you know, whatever you want to do. There’s so many things that people add to plastic to give it the properties they want.  

So there’s blow-molding and injection molding manufacturers, a lot more places in Western New York than I ever thought. And they’re facilities where people work and they make a lot of useful products. Some are single use plastics, which is a whole other separate conversation and problem. Some are really useful products that you would use again and again and again. Plastic has a place. Some plastic has less of a place and we should be thinking about those types of single use plastics a little differently.  

They get shipped up here and there’s so many ways that they can spill or get lost from their intended [production] stream. They can sneak out of the truck somehow, or once they’re on site, they’re landing on the ground and the rain washes them off site or down a storm drain that maybe connects into a waterway. Or I’ve learned that some of the silos they store these nurdles in have an outlet on the top so that if the silo fills up too much, it just will escape from the top. And then nurdles can become airborne and then it could rain nurdles, which seems like a weird design and maybe a flaw. I’ve been learning about all these different ways that they could escape the [production] stream. And volunteers, not in Western New York, but in other places, have found them along railroads. They’re small. They shake out of their container and then they’re in the environment. And we all understand how water flows, the wind moves, everything’s going to that low point, which is our waterways. And then we’re finding them on the shores of rivers and Lake Erie.  

And some could be coming from local facilities, some could be coming from other spaces in the Great Lakes because of how the water flows through the huge system. But we’ve finding a bunch and then it’s: how are these affecting our wildlife? And how are these affecting us as we get our drinking water from this water?  

These nurdles have chemicals in them or they can actually be like little sponges.  

Adam: So it can absorb stuff and it can also decompose, too, right?  

Elizabeth: Yeah, they’ll eventually break down. And we’ve found nurdles of all different colors. So some are getting dyed and some are not necessarily dyed a color. But yeah, they can be little sponges. They eventually wear down, break down into smaller and smaller plastics, creating microplastics. So a whole swath of issues that could stem from these little plastic pellets that somebody might overlook and think they’re just like a little rock, but when you know what to look for, you can’t unsee them.  

Adam: I can totally see how you’re saying they can just almost fall off and get into places. I think of my kids at home, they have these beads or these, you know, they’re making bracelets or something or these projects where they can heat these things together with an iron to make a design, a shape, a character, and they just break apart so easily. And then it’s like, you can see where the issue is of them just kind of easily getting out there because they’re small. There’s so many of them. And you’re starting to talk a little about like some of the issues with that. So that’s like in the environment, fish might be ingesting it.  

Elizabeth: It looks like a little egg, looks like a delicious treat. Right? And scientists have found plastic in all kinds of animals. Birds, fish, you know, whales. Not that we have whales here in Western New York, but I’m assuming that there are fish in the Niagara River, in the Great Lakes that have nurdles in their belly.  

Adam: But they can break down into that microplastic element eventually.  

Elizabeth: Any plastic can, you know, they’re in the water. It’s like a washing machine. It’s wearing things down. It’s out in the sun, sun makes plastics brittle like a milk jug. It sits out in the sun, it’s eventually going to crack and become fragments of plastic shards and eventually break down smaller and smaller and smaller.  

So there are so many plastics that we see along the shorelines and some you can identify, oh, that’s you know, that’s a balloon. That’s a cigar tip. That’s this. Some are like, oh, that’s a piece of something. Who knows what it is?  

When you can identify the item, that gives you room to explore: “how do we stop this from winding up here and going up the stream of its production and where it’s coming from, who’s using it?”  

And nurdles – you’re not buying nurdles, Adam. Nurdles are being bought by a specific type of company. So that’s where we’re like, oh, there is some opportunity here to figure this out and maybe slow this from becoming a bigger problem.  

Kind of like the microbeads in the microbeads ban at Erie County was really one of the first counties in New York State to sign that ban into law. And then the whole state followed suit. Those little tiny beads, we were finding them in our water, scientists were finding them in our water or going through the sinks, piping to the wastewater treatment plant and then out into the waterway. Because they’re so small, they’re not filtering out for them. That’s in a specific type of product: face wash, lotion, toothpaste. We can control that.  

Same thing with the nurdles. We can figure out where they’re coming from a little easier than we can all these different colored plastic shards of who knows what they are.  

So that’s what we’ve been trying to do here locally is: “all right, where are we finding the nurdles?” Let’s just locate them and then look around upstream. Is there a facility nearby? What are they doing to keep nurdles from polluting the environment? And we’ve been learning from other groups in the U.S. We’ve joined Nurdle Patrol. We have our local nurdle patrol volunteers, and then there’s a nationwide project that we’ve kind of joined up based out of Texas, right where the nurdles really started being identified as a pollution issue.  

There’s groups all over the U.S. and in other countries, too, looking and identifying nurdles, collecting data. And then that data can be used by advocates and researchers to make a positive change. 

Adam: Because then we’ll see where it’s coming from. We can say, “hey, this is a problem, it’s out here.” We need to stop the problem. And getting legislation, getting people advocating for that change.  

I know you’re with the volunteer ambassadors, we’ve had trainings for that, telling people what to go do, how to look for them. If you were to give a quick synopsis on a volunteer ambassador training for nurdles, what’s kind of happening at that time? 

Elizabeth: They meet me on site somewhere along the Niagara River, at Gratwick Park, where we found a bunch of nurdles before. We walk them through the data collection process. They actually get out there with their tweezers and pick up nurdles. It’s a ten minute process, how many they can collect in 10 minutes. And I give them just some backstory on what a nurdle is-  the building blocks of plastic products – where they’re coming from. People are really interested. They might have never heard of it.  

Then, what does Waterkeeper do with this information? Where we’re locating more of the facilities that are using them here, trying to do some investigative work and make change through either work on policies that limit plastic pollution from our Great Lakes and local waterways.  

But we also, you know, have conversations with the DEC or different facilities. Hey, we noticed this, have you noticed this? It doesn’t have to be so complicated. Sometimes it can just start with the “Hey, we’re concerned. Are you concerned?” Usually, you know, you might be surprised. They might be like, oh, wow, yeah, I am concerned. Let’s see what we can do to, you know, fix the water.  

We honestly don’t know how long these nurdles have been on the shore. I have more questions than answers through doing this. Some are maybe coming locally, some are coming from the other side of Lake Erie and washing up the Niagara River towards Lake Ontario. 

Adam: Because they might be shipped elsewhere. And then whatever happens, it gets in the water and it’s coming our way.  

Elizabeth: Coming our way over time, right. Just based on how the watershed flows. But, you know, we can assume some are flowing from the land here. Some are from the lake. You know, upstream… 

Adam: Is Gratwick Park one of the primary spots you continue to find nurdles?  

Elizabeth: Yeah, definitely one of our hotspots. There’s a curve to the river there and the way the wind flows, a lot of things get deposited on the shoreline there, but a lot of just different plastic in that location. So that’s why like it’s not just one source that is contributing to the nurdles from that, they’re definitely others.

Because we’ve found nurdles along the Buffalo River, along the Lake Erie shoreline. There are other there downstream on the Niagara River. They’re all over the place. But there are definitely some hotspots. And the more volunteers we have out there, the more eyes we have out there, the more we can start to understand just the extent of the nurdle pollution in Western New York. Ten that gives us more room to explore solutions and advocacy efforts.  

Adam: A coworker of ours, Jeanne, has just turned us on to this one book called Adrift: The Curious Tale of the Lego Lost at Sea by Tracy Williams. Really good book. If you’re in the Erie County Buffalo Public Library System, it’s available now as soon as I return it back.  

But it talks about a shipping vessel that had a bunch of shipping containers on it in 1997. I forgot how many containers fell off, but a lot of them. One of the big containers was Lego products, and it was right off the southwestern shore of England.  

So since 1997, these Legos have been washing up both on the shore around that area and the Cornwall region, if you want to go get specific. And then with the ocean currents, they’re being found all over the world in some way. And it’s not just these Legos. That’s kind of the impetus for the story, but they’re finding all these other products. And I think it was just fascinating to see that. And I talked earlier about my kids playing with these types of toys and how it can just get out there. And I hadn’t really given it a thought of, I guess, our own use of plastics and, you know, trying to reconcile with this idea of, oh, my kids are playing with this really cool craft, but these little pieces are going to fall off at some point, break out. And what’ll happen to them?  

Because in this book, Adrift, it’s really highlighting this idea of these ocean currents carrying it all over the place. And these plastics will probably be here almost forever in some way. Like whether it’s the microplastics… 

Elizabeth: Yeah, they never go away. They just get smaller and smaller until you can’t see them. But they’re still there.  

Adam: You read the book, too. What do you think of it?  

Elizabeth: I really enjoyed the book. I love the use of photography in pictures to make it really just visually interesting. And I mean, it spoke to me because I pick up litter when I walk my dog, I’m always finding things. But then I’m also like some of the beachcombers highlighted in the book. I have my little stashes of weird plastic items that I collect and because I’ve worked with artists before, I have a little artistic side to me as well, but you start to find the same kind of items and they do tell a story and it’s interesting and people can connect visually with things. They had some really good imagery in here.  

And it does make you think differently about these items you might use every day, use it once, throw it away. Right after the trash bin, where does it go? You think it goes to the dump, often it might get diverted and end up in the water, off in the ocean and end up in a fish or a bird.  

Adam: We’ve all seen garbage on a windy day, when trash is put out and it’s just blown across the road and it goes down to a sewer and then that leads out to the waterways and ocean. So it’s yeah, it’s, it’s not uncommon in a way for it to get out there.  

Elizabeth: Sadly it’s not. And once you see that and you collect plastic litter from the shore of your drinking water – which is why we love getting folks out to do cleanups – you just think so differently and you see things in a different way, like it changes you. And it makes you rethink things you might be purchasing. You’re supporting those items with your money when you’re buying them. Can I replace that with something that isn’t throwaway, one-use? Can I buy something that I could reuse over and over again? Or do I even need that? Do I have something that I already own that you use a little differently?  

And, you know, that’s that just thought of individual impact. Obviously there’s a lot of responsibility with industry producing items. You have to attack the problem from both ends: the individual and the producer and try to make a change through both avenues.  

Adam: Right. If you get enough people interested, they’ll change their ways and continue to advocate to say “you’re doing this, you’re bringing in nurdles. What can we do to make sure they’re not just falling out of a ship or train, or can you do something different?”  

We don’t want that in the environment. We don’t want that out there.  

Elizabeth: And we’ve had success with that. We’ve found nurdles, we’ve had conversations and that’s resulted in change at local facilities. So we have had success, and having data and having conversations can make really good change and keep on what we’re doing to keep making more positive change. And everyone can join in on that, either by collecting nurdles or getting involved with our work in other ways, or just taking a little inventory of all the plastic items you’re using and kind of rethinking about how you’re using them or what you’re using. So we can all make little changes together to protect our water, our Great Lakes, our drinking water, and all the critters that need it to survive, too.  

Adam: And on our website, we have several pages devoted to plastic pollution advocacy, volunteering efforts. You know, stay up to date on that with volunteer ambassadors. Check out the pages BNWaterkeeper.org.  

Anything else, Liz?  

Elizabeth: Get out there and pick up plastic while you walk. Pick up trash while you’re walking around. You get a little workout in and you’re keeping your community clean. And then you can log all that data for waterkeeper Clean Swell, or come to a future in nurdle patrol training. We host them every spring.  

Adam: Excellent. Well, thank you, Liz.  

Elizabeth: Thanks, Adam.