Bayworld talk on microplastic pollution

The Algoa Bay Hope Spot and Bayworld will host a Know Your Bay night at Bayworld on Thursday February 7.

The free evening, presented in conjunction with the Algoa Bay branch of Wessa, will focus on microplastic in the air and in the sea and is at 5.30 for 6pm.

“Where did the nurdles go?” by Dr Eckart Schumann will cover the voyage of billions of nurdles (tiny pieces of plastic) spilled off the MSC Susanna in Durban harbour during a storm in October 2017.

Because the public became aware of the nurdles being washed up onto the shore and reported them to a co-ordinating body (CoastKZN), the scale of the pollution could be traced all along the coast.

The nurdles were tracked to East London, Port Elizabeth, Mossel Bay and, eight weeks after the spill, at Gansbaai.

Schumann, an internationally renowned oceanographer and research associate at the Ocean Science campus of NMU, uses wind, wave and current data to simulate the movement of these microplastic nurdles

He demonstrates the manner in which plastic pollution pervades all the oceans and seas.

“It is raining plastic. Literally” by Dr Dee Allen and PhD candidate Steve Allen will discuss the data collected from remote areas of deposition of microplastic falling from the sky.

The Allens will also present some of the research they are conducting here in Algoa Bay, part of a pan-Africa river plastic survey aiming to “0 Plastic to the Sea”.

Steve Allen is researching atmospheric microplastic in remote and high-altitude areas around the world with a focus on the French Pyrenees mountains, while Dr Dee Allen is a researcher in urban drainage pollution and co-researcher in atmospheric microplastic.

Inquiries: Bayworld on 041-584-0650, or e-mail lorienp@hotmail.com, 078-844-3863.