{"id":573583,"date":"2026-05-08T21:06:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T21:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/573583\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T21:06:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T21:06:20","slug":"plastic-pellets-clean-up-from-beaches-in-kent-and-sussex-could-take-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/573583\/","title":{"rendered":"Plastic pellets clean-up from beaches in Kent and Sussex &#8216;could take years&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Scientists have found the biobeads contain a number of heavy metals, including lead and arsenic, which could be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c075v9n8ymjo\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">toxic to wildlife<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Beech added the time to clean up the spill depended on the weather and oceanography.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Nurdle, which is receiving funding from Southern Water, is using a specialised vacuum cleaner to remove the biobeads from the beaches. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The group cleared a &#8220;significant proportion&#8221; of them in the immediate days after they were discovered in November, although not all could be collected, according to Rother District Council. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Beech explained that Nurdle now needed to wait for spring tides and storms to churn up pellets buried in the sand so they can be removed by the machine. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Basically, it&#8217;ll be storm hunting for the next few years,&#8221; he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists have found the biobeads contain a number of heavy metals, including lead and arsenic, which could be&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-573583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573583","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=573583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}