Millions of plastic pellets are ashore in Vilar beach in Galicia, northwestern Spain. The culprit is a cargo ship called Toconao - a Liberia-registered vessel chartered by shipping giant Maersk.
Toconao lost six containers off Viana do Castelo, a coastal city in Portugal, on Dec. 8, 2023. The vessel was destined to the port of Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. At least one of those containers allegedly belonged to Poland-based plastic manufacturer Bedeko Europe, holding thousands of 25 kg bags full of white plastic pellets, according to a statement by Spanish environmental group Ecologistas en Accion. Bedeko Europe denies the charge, stating 'no responsibility' for the incident.
"We would like to emphatically state that despite our company's name appearing on the found bags, we are not their owners and do not bear responsibility for the resulting damage," Urszula Hass, purchasing and logistics director at Bedeko Europe told Sustainable Plastics. "The owner is an Indian manufacturer, and the responsibility for the loss of many containers at sea, including one with granulate, rests with the transport company Maersk, which carried out this transport with full insurance for such events," she continued. "Representatives of Maersk are currently in the process of contacting interested parties and coastal management companies to resolve the problem."
At the time of publication of this update, Bedeko Europe did not clarify who the purported Indian manufacturer is, nor why the bags had the company's branding if they don't belong to it.
The 'blame game' over the spill and subsequent slow response has extended to Spanish local and national authorities, Reuters has reported. Residents and environmental groups are concerned about the potential environmental impact and how it could affect fishing. Groups of volunteers have been cleaning up the beach with colanders and shovels during the past week.
“The Noialimpa collective began to denounce this spill on Dec. 26, when plastics began to arrive en masse to the Galician beaches, raising the alarm,” Ecologistas en Accion said in a statement. “However, the environmental and marine groups denounce the inaction of the city council, which did not sound an alert when it was notified of the loss of the containers nor activated measures in the 18 days prior to the arrival of plastics on the beaches, time in which much of the pollution could have been avoided by intercepting the bags that were floating in the sea before they broke when clashing against the rocks, spreading their load,” the group criticised.
Reuters has reported that Galicia's regional leader Alfonso Rueda, of Spain's conservative opposition People's Party, said the central government had known about the pellets being scattered for over two weeks but only informed his administration on Jan. 4.
Madrid's representative in Galicia said the maritime rescue service had first informed regional coast guards about the incident on Dec. 20.
The blame game is likely to continue as the public is demanding clean-up actions and studies to determine the potential environmental damaged.
Ecologistas en Accion said on Jan. 5 it would file an environmental crime complaint against Toucan Maritime, the Dutch owner of the vessel.
*This article was updated on 10/01/2024 at 09:13 CET to include a statement from Bedeko Europe who denies being the owner of the pellets, despite its name appearing on the lost bags.