Millions of biobeads – tiny plastic pellets used to treat wastewater – have washed up on Camber Sands beach and along the East Sussex coastline. Southern Water has confirmed that the pollution was accidentally released into the water after a mechanical fault in October.
"After completing the initial stages of a thorough investigation, which is continuing, we believe it is highly likely that the beads have come from our Eastbourne Wastewater Treatment Works,” says a Southern Water spokesperson in a statement.
“We've identified a failure of a screening filter which has apparently led to beads used in the treatment process being released into the sea during heavy rainfall. The screen should have prevented this occurring.”
According to local environmental organisation Strandliners, members of the public noticed biobeads on Hastings Beach on 30 October and Strandliners volunteers spotted more biobeads than usual during a clean-up the following day. “A slick arrived at high tide, at Camber Sands, and it just seemed to get worse and worse,” says Andy Dinsdale, founder of Strandliners.
Volunteers at Camber Sands beach have already spent five days cleaning up the microplastic pollution to try to minimise the environmental impact, but Dinsdale worries that much of the damage is already done. “That moment [when the biobeads spilled into the water] was the critical time to do something about it, because they were left to disperse and to land on beaches,” he says, adding that plastics from the spill have been found on French beaches.
Helena Dollimore, Labour and Co-operative Member of Parliament for Hastings and Rye, who joined the clean-up efforts, was extremely concerned by the damage done to the coastline. “We have a huge number of rare species and marine life at Camber Sands and the surrounding area, and there is going to be damage caused to that wildlife, even with the commendable clean-up operation that we are running,” she says.
Volunteers who want to help the clean-up effort at Camber Sands or other affected beaches are recommended to bring gloves, a sieve and a bucket. To manually remove the biobeads from the sand, pick them out by hand or scoop the sand into a bucket of water and sieve the plastic biobeads from the surface (the plastic will float).
Strandliners is also calling for members of the public to check their local beaches for the presence of biobeads so they can determine how much of the coastline has been affected. “We have been asking people to go west of Bexhill and east of Camber – effectively, all the coastline of Kent and Sussex,” says Dinsdale.
Biobeads are just 5mm wide and can sometimes be difficult to spot, especially in shingle, so people will need to look carefully along the strandline. Biobeads are a type of BAFF media (biological aerated flooded filter) that act as a filter when water passes through them. Usually dark grey or black, they are ridged or crinkled to give a high surface area for bacteria (biofilm) to adhere to.
Those who get involved can email the organisation (info at Strandliners) with their location, whether biobeads were present – “it's important to know if they weren't present as well,” says Dinsdale – a photo (to check they correctly identified the biobeads) and an estimate of how many were there.
“Please wear gloves, and wash hands afterwards,” he says. “And keep dogs away from them – poor wildlife!”
Southern Water has apologised for the spill. "We are very sorry this has happened and are doing everything possible to investigate and resolve the problem,” says a spokesperson, adding that they “remain committed to supporting this work” to clean up the coast.
Clean-up efforts continue and more biobeads are expected to wash in with the tides. Dollimore has written an open letter to Southern Water, describing the incident as an “environmental catastrophe”. She is calling for an independent investigation into why it took so long for the spill to be detected and is putting pressure on the company to fund the clean-up attempts. “It is a race against time. We need more boots on the ground and access to specialist machinery,” she says in a statement.
“Southern Water must now urgently deploy every possible resource to clean up our coastline,” says Dollimore. “Instead of paying dividends or bonuses, they must pay for a full programme of nature recovery to restore the fragile ecosystems at Camber Sands, Rye and Hastings, and along our coastline – ecosystems that their negligence has put at serious risk.”
Top image: Biobeads wash up on Camber Sands. Credit: Getty
More stories from around the UK
- Spider hunters find "epic lost species" on the Isle of Wight
- Scientists to freeze butterfly eggs in world-first experiment to save rare swallowtail
- “A 60-pound seal is barrelling towards me down the corridor.” My day caring for pups at a rescue centre
- What’s the biggest and deadliest wasp in the world – and has it ever been seen in Britain?
- Second largest animal on Earth washes up on Welsh beach. Here’s what happens now
