Plastic pellet pollution

along Sri Lankan shores

- By Kamanthi Wickramasinghe

Environmental groups and civil rights activists have raised concerns about two shipwrecks that occurred in the Indian Ocean in close proximity to South India recently. On May 24, MSC ELSA 3, a container ship sailing under the flag of Liberia, sank off the coast of Kochi, reportedly due to an operational problem. On June 9, Singapore-flagged merchant vessel MV WAN HAI 503 caught fire off the Beypore coast in Kerala. Following the two incidents, environmental groups observe a spike in plastic pellets (nurdles) spreading along the coastline from Jaffna to Galle in addition to a possible oil spill that would move towards Sri Lanka with the prevailing monsoon weather. As such, environmentalists are demanding accountability from polluters as island states such as Sri Lanka can no longer bear the brunt of irreversible maritime disasters.