Pellets arrive in Menorca: their journey from Tarragona to the Balearic coast

The beach of Cavalleria dawned this week covered by these tiny pieces, which serve as raw material for the manufacture of plastic products, and which are considered microplastics due to their size, generally less than 5 mm in diameter. These granules reach the Minorcan coast due to the constant losses suffered by the companies that work with them.

This is not the first time this has happened, as in 2021, the Chasing Pellets expedition detected, thanks to the study carried out by Per la Mar Viva, up to 6000 pellets per m2 in Menorca, an area that lacks a plastic industry. So where do these microplastics come from?

These pellets end up in the sea as a result of their loss by the factories of the petrochemical complex in the port of Tarragona. A large quantity of these microplastics end up in the river Francoli and with the rains they flow into the sea, from where they are dragged out to sea by the prevailing winds of the area, traveling through the Mediterranean and affecting protected natural areas such as the Balearic Islands.

The environmental organizations Good Karma Projects and Surfrider Foundation, in collaboration with INSTA's legal team, requested last October the initiation of environmental liability proceedings due to persistent plastic pellet pollution in the Tarragona region.

These organizations achieved their first legal victory when the Administration accepted to process their request. In this way, the Department of Climate Action of the Generalitat de Catalunya has opened a file for 8 petrochemical companies, for contributing to the leakage of pellets into the Francoli River through the branches through which the complex passes.

Iván Hortigüela, lawyer for INSTA, explains what this means: "With this resolution, the request to initiate the procedure for environmental liability is admitted. A period of six months is now open during which the relevant Subdirectorate General will study in depth all the information provided by the different actors involved in the process".

According to Jordi Oliva, co-founder of Good Karma Projects "After more than 5 years of volunteer work in the field we have managed to gather the necessary and irrefutable information to stop questioning once and for all the origin of the pollution. This has been possible thanks to the collaboration of Per la Mar Viva and Surfrider Foundation, as well as the City Council of Vila-seca, a figure that has given us support. We need leaders within the administration who want to solve this problem at source in an effective way and stop promoting, for example, the cleaning of the affected areas as it is unfeasible. What we see on the beaches is only a small part of the problem, we need strong measures as a matter of urgency".

This investigation will lead to a ruling on whether or not there is environmental liability for the pellet pollution of the companies in the plastic value chain involved. In the event that such liability is found to exist, the resolution should specify the pollution prevention and damage remediation measures to be carried out by the companies, among other things.