Plastic pellets spread along Denmark’s west coast, defying cleanup

Tiny plastic pellets have washed up on beaches along Denmark’s west coast, threatening birds and proving almost impossible to remove, DR reports.

The pellets have been spotted from the German island of Sylt to Løkken. They are less than five millimetres across and are classified as microplastics.

Forest ranger Anders Rahbek of the Danish Nature Agency’s Wadden Sea unit found the pellets among seaweed, feathers and shells on Lakolk Beach on the island of Rømø last week. He said they are too small for the agency’s usual beach-cleaning equipment to collect.

The pellets may be mistaken for food by birds, said Kim Fischer, a board member of the Danish Ornithological Society’s South West Jutland branch. If birds swallow them, the plastic can remain in their stomachs and build up until they can no longer eat enough to survive, he said.

Steffen Krogager Madsen, district manager for roads and parks in Varde Municipality, said conventional beach-cleaning machines cannot remove pellets about the size of a garden ant. Collecting them by hand would be “almost impossible”, he said.

The pellets are believed to have come from a ship accident near Newcastle in England during the summer. Nearly 18 tonnes entered the sea, according to the port responsible, Port of Tyne. Signe Simonsen, managing editor at Race for Oceans Technology, which maps microplastics on Danish beaches, said the pellets found on the coast are identical to those involved in the accident.