Celebrating 10 years of pellet loss mitigation and contributing to the health of our oceans

The British Plastics Federation (BPF) is celebrating the 10^th anniversary of Operation Clean Sweep®, the international industry initiative to stop plastic pellet loss to the environment.

The health of our oceans is under increased threat from a suite of different anthropogenic activities with detrimental effects on marine ecosystems. Some of these include acidification, land runoff, overfishing and plastic waste pollution. Societal failure to tackle littering and to ensure effective waste management practices are in place has resulted in heightened levels of plastic waste from land-based sources escaping into the marine environment.

Leakage of plastics into the environment can come at every stage of the production, manufacturing, distribution, use and disposal pathway. Pellet loss is dangerous to the marine environment as pellets can be mistaken for food by marine species and climb up the food chain. Pellet loss also has economic implications as plastic pellets are a valuable raw material – it makes little sense to waste them. However, solutions can be easily implemented to ensure industrial sites and actors across the plastic pellet supply chain put in place best practice measures and train their staff about ways to contain pellet spills in case these occur.

Operation Clean Sweep® is an international industry initiative to contain plastic pellet loss to the environment. In the UK, it has been run by the British Plastics Federation since 2009 and has significantly contributed to the health of our oceans by mitigating the risks of pellet loss across industrial sites. Pre-production plastics come in the form of pellets, powders or flakes (collectively referred to as ‘plastic pellets’) before being manufactured into consumer goods. Pellets are distributed to manufacturing facilities across the world. Many different actors across the supply chain are handling plastic pellets and thus bear responsibility for implementing best practice measures to mitigate against the risk of pellet loss.  

 Pellets represent a category of microplastics together with tyre dust, microfibers from textiles and microbeads. Almost two-thirds (63.1%) of microplastics released into the oceans are due to the laundering of synthetic textiles (34.8%) and the erosion of tyres while driving (28.3%). Plastic pellets account for 0.3%.

Source: Boucher, J. and Friot D. (2017). Primary Microplastics in the Oceans: A Global Evaluation of Sources, IUCN, available at https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/2017-002.pdf

Operation Clean Sweep® facts and figures:

• 145 companies are currently part of the programme in the UK – the largest number of signatories in Europe.
• Signatories receive a member pack from the BPF and gain access to comprehensive resources that enable them to put in place best practice measures. Some of these include:  The Operation Clean Sweep® manual, employee training tools, housekeeping procedures, case studies, technical equipment list to contain pellet spills, a letter for suppliers and partners to encourage them to be part of the programme, webinars and videos.
• Signatories represent more than 50% of the volume of material manufactured in the UK.
• Yearly surveys conducted by the BPF show significant improvements of pellet handling practices.
• In September 2018, Teesport became the first UK port to take action against pellet loss, when its operator PD Ports joined the programme. Teesport is one of the major transport and logistics hubs in the UK.
• In February 2019, the BPF chaired a session on pellet loss and presented on the importance of a whole-supply-chain approach as part of an international marine conference organised by the Scottish Government in Glasgow.
• The British Irish Council held a marine symposium and a ministerial meeting one day after the conference in Glasgow, recognising the efforts of the UK plastics industry as part of the Operation Clean Sweep® programme. 

However, plastic pellets are still found in the environment. It should be remembered that sometimes they can travel hundreds of miles may leak from a shipping container lost decades ago, for example. Nevertheless, all reasonable measures should be taken to stop new plastic pellets ever reaching the environment.  The UK plastics industry is highly committed to tackling this issue and as a result the BPF is currently engaged in discussions with a wide array of stakeholders on the need to identify and put in place additional measures on pellet loss containment.

The BPF is actively working to strengthen the Operation Clean Sweep® programme and ensure all actors across the supply chain take proactive measures to ensure zero pellet loss. Any companies that handle plastic pellets are strongly encouraged to sign up to the programme and ensure zero pellet loss to the environment.