{"id":479359,"date":"2026-03-16T23:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T23:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/479359\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T23:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T23:12:12","slug":"what-happened-to-plastic-nurdles-in-norfolk-and-lincolnshire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/479359\/","title":{"rendered":"What happened to plastic nurdles in Norfolk and Lincolnshire?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Marine Conservation Society described The Wash as an internationally important, protected area for birds like waders, gulls and terns, and said it was deeply concerned. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">According to the RSPB, The Wash supports more than 400,000 non-breeding waterbirds, the largest harbour seal colony in the UK, and is home to countless rare plants and invertebrates.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust and Norfolk Wildlife Trust were also anxious, and said the risks increased when nurdles became coated in highly toxic pollutants.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Nurdles look like small fish eggs,&#8221; said Tammy Smalley, head of conservation at Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;If you are a sea bird or a marine mammal, you might go &#8216;ooh, smorgasbord&#8217;, and they&#8217;ll feed on them and they&#8217;ll either choke or [the nurdles] will go through to the stomach and they think they&#8217;ve fed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;So, gradually, it could cause starvation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Over time nurdles break up into smaller and smaller microplastic fragments, which then become an issue for smaller animals and enter the food chain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Marine Conservation Society described The Wash as an internationally important, protected area for birds like waders, gulls&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-479359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}