The non-profit organisation specialising in removing microplastics, Nurdle, have been at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve working on the bio-bead clean-up.
The Nurdle machine operates like a big hoover, sucking up the strandline vegetation and any bio-beads and microplastics. The bio-beads at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve are at a lower density than at Camber Sands but are harder to extract as they are within the saltmarsh vegetation. It is important to remove them as soon as possible as the bird nesting season will soon begin and we don’t want to disturb any breeding birds at the site. The bio-beads are also similar in shape and size to plant seeds, and we want to limit ingestion by wild fowl and waders.
Ecologists are on-site to monitor the collection, this helps make the collection as effective as possible, with no negative impacts on the saltmarsh wildlife. Nurdle hope to be back on site before the end of February but this will be weather dependant. They are confident that they can remove over 90% of the bio-beads at the site.
Arthur Sloman, Rye Harbour Discovery Centre visitor experience manager, said, “It’s incredible to see how effective Nurdle’s machines have been at removing microplastics from the saltmarsh habitat. The bio‑beads are so tiny that they are practically invisible in the saltmarsh until you start looking for them. The Nurdle team have so much expertise in this work that I can’t imagine anyone better suited to the task.
“We’re delighted that the Nurdle team have been able to successfully collect bio‑beads at this important time before the bird breeding season begins. If the clean‑up were left any later, it would cause increasing disturbance to the birds.
“Rye Harbour Nature Reserve is such a special site that even a small volume of microplastic threatens to have a significant impact on wildlife.”