Mayors file legal complaint over plastic waste washed up on French coast

A hundred people gathered on a beach in Pornic on France's north western coast (Loire-Atlantique) on Saturday to denounce the pollution of plastic micro-beads washed up there and on other beaches in recent weeks. Several elected officials have filed a legal complaint against what they describe as an "environmental nightmare".

This photograph taken on January 21, 2023, shows plastic beads, also called "mermaid's tears", collected by dozens of volunteers on a beach in Pornic, after a large quantity of of them washed ashore polluting the beaches of Pornic, western France. AFP - LOIC VENANCE

"It is thought that a shipping container that may have been damaged some time ago, and which, with the recent storms, opened up, spreading the pellets along the shores," Lionel Cheylus, spokesperson for the Surfrider foundation told French news agency AFP.

The NGO was behind the beach clean up operation and protest in Pornic and in other beachside towns in France and Spain on Saturday.

These pellets, also called or "mermaid's tears", are melted "to make all everyday plastic objects", explains Cheylus. "It is pollution that moves".

"We found pellets in December in Finistère, then it was in Sables d'Olonne, after that it was here in Pornic (...), on Friday, it was still in Noirmoutier," he said, labelling a number of western French beaches, popular with tourists.

People of all ages scraped the sand for two hours to pick up these round, white micro-beads, which are the size of a grain of rice.

✊#PollutionPlastique : en #France (et aussi en Espagne) les bénévoles se sont rassemblés sur plusieurs plages pour dénoncer l'irresponsabilité des industriels du #plastique.
🗓 Nouveau rassemblement aujourd'hui à @OT_Longeville (Vendée). 🇪🇺 @EU_Commission, legislate now ! pic.twitter.com/huNWy3SGT2

— Surfrider France (@surfriderfrance) January 22, 2023

Poison for the fish

With the recent passage of the major Gérard storm, pellets were difficult to find for the demonstrators who wrote on their signs: "Plastic pollution = guilty industry!" and "Poison for the fish".

"It's more symbolic than anything else: I don't think we're going to pick up the whole container!" Annick, a retiree who had filled the bottom of a yogurt pot with a few dozen pellets, told AFP.

Joël Guerriau, a senator for the Loire-Atlantique region says that a clear definition of how dangerous these pellets is needed on an international level.

• Plastic Odyssey sets off on round-the-world mission to fight marine pollution
• Greenpeace study shows plastic recycling is a 'failed concept'

"Once we have this condition which is fulfilled and recognised, then, there could be a specific color of the containers allowing to identify that there is danger".

The mayor of Pornic, Jean-Michel Brard, was also present on the beach on Saturday.

He filed a legal complaint on Monday, as did the mayor of Les Sables d'Olonne, Yannick Moreau, and the president of the Pays de la Loire region, Christelle Morançais.

"The State is alongside the associations, and I am announcing that we are taking legal action," the Minister for Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu told AFP, describing the pellets as an "environmental nightmare".

(with AFP)