Hundreds of thousands of plastic pellets — known as nurdles — have washed up on beaches across the Hauraki Gulf, including Oneroa Beach on Waiheke Island and the northern shore of Motuihe.
The pellets are used in the manufacture of items like water tanks and milk bottles and are believed to have spilled from a plastics facility in Auckland.
The issue was highlighted by NZME’s Michael Morrah, who filmed clusters of nurdles along the high tide line at Oneroa.
Plastics New Zealand CEO Rachel Barker described the footage as “heartbreaking” and said mitigation measures are “clear and easy to implement.”
“From where we sit, there is no excuse,” she said, calling for national regulation to force companies to act.
Only around half of the 435 plastics firms using nurdles in New Zealand have voluntarily signed up to the “Operation Clean Sweep” programme. Barker says some firms are ignoring the issue entirely: “I think it sucks, quite frankly.”
Greg Yeoman, co-founder of Enviropod and developer of drain filters used internationally, said the current system has failed. “Millions of these things are coming off industrial sites,” he said.
Auckland Council has not issued any fines for plastic pollution in the last two years.
Volunteers from Sustainable Coastlines found large volumes of nurdles on Motuihe Island. Spokesperson Helen Adams-Blackburn called the concentration “disturbing,” warning the microplastics are toxic and enter the food chain.
Environment Minister Penny Simmonds acknowledged to NZME that microplastic pollution is a serious issue, but declined to say if she thought the nurdle spill was a one-off, whether it warranted an investigation into its source, or whether it was frequent enough to justify legislative change.
“Currently, the Government’s focus is on a product stewardship scheme for farm plastics, agrichemicals, and their containers,” she said.
