On our 2nd day on St Helena our on board scientist Deborah Robertson - Andersson kindly asked me to accompany her to visit Sandy Bay. We collected samples from the beach for her research in Durban into the spread of tiny plastic balls (“Nurdles”) from a large spill of a few years ago on the Indian Ocean coast of South Africa. We were driven there in the Land Rover of a local environmental science office (a 4x4 is needed for the very rough road down to the beach). It was interesting to talk with them about the issues St Helena faces.

We found plenty of Nurdles pretty easily unfortunately. They will be analysed to see how they have degraded & have begun to break down into micro plastic.