"Catastrophic" - Toxic Plastic Beads Swamp Beloved English Beach; Cleanup Nearly Impossible

Southern Water is investigating after millions of contaminated plastic beads washed up on Camber Sands beach, risking an “environmental catastrophe”. The biobeads could have a dire impact on marine life, the local MP has said, with fears rare sea life, including seabirds, porpoises and seals, could ingest them and die. Helena Dollimore, the MP for Hastings and Rye, suspects the beads may have been spilled by a local water treatment centre and has written to the Southern Water chief executive, Lawrence Gosden, demanding an explanation.

Camber Sands in East Sussex is one of England’s most beloved beaches, with rare dune habitat and vast stretches of golden sand. Volunteers have been racing against time to clear the beads, filling dozens of bags with the plastic waste, but the scale of the pollution spill is vast and it is unlikely they will be able to remove all of them. Andy Dinsdale, from the plastic pollution campaign group Strandliners, said on Saturday: “This is the worst pollution event I have ever seen. It is contaminated plastic. Marine animals will ingest small plastic items once they are in the sea, they will attract algae, they will smell like food, effectively.

EDIT

“They are so small that, from a very long way off, the beach looks normal. But as soon as you get close up you see there are millions of black pellets, nestled under seaweed. It’s an impossible task – volunteers have been raking for days, and they will continue to rake, but we won’t be able to get rid of them all. It is the worst I have ever seen of a polluted beach.” Dollimore, the Labour and Cooperative MP who joined the clean-up efforts, said: “The huge number of plastic beads that have washed up here risks an environmental catastrophe. These biobeads are deadly to marine life and wildlife, and we are already seeing more dead seals, fish and porpoises on the beach.

“Local residents are working tirelessly to remove as many beads as possible, but it’s a race against time. Southern Water must urgently establish if their local wastewater plants could be the source of these biobeads, and I’ve asked them to dedicate all available resources to supporting the clean-up operation in the meantime.” The beads are also dangerous to dogs as they contain a high number of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are known to have carcinogenic properties, and they often contain toxins including lead, antimony and bromine.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/08/environmental-catastrophe-fears-as-millions-of-plastic-beads-wash-up-on-camber-sands