Join the Great Global Nurdle Hunt

October 2025 saw the 13th annual Great Global Nurdle Hunt, a citizen science project with over 1,500 volunteers in 25 countries searching their shorelines for nurdles. Nurdles are the pre-production building blocks of most plastic products. They’re lentil-shaped microplastic pellets, ~2-3mm in diameter, which are melted down in plastic production. Unfortunately, nurdles have found their way into every corner of the world, with this year's hunt reporting that 92% of participating countries found nurdles, including remote regions in the Arctic Circle and Fiji. 

So how do nurdles end up in the environment? 

Due to their small size, they are easily spilled during production and transport. They are lost to drains and waterways, eventually reaching the ocean. Over 445,000 metric tons of nurdles are estimated to be lost to the environment each year. In March 2025, a collision between two ships off the north east coast of England resulted in multiple shipping containers falling into the ocean, and millions of nurdles washing up on the English coast. Whilst the initial clean-up collected over 10,000kg of plastic from the beaches, nurdles continued to infiltrate the natural ecosystems for months after.

Nurdles pose a great threat to coastal ecosystems and wildlife. Their shape and size means they are easily mistaken for food by seabirds and small mammals. When ingested, nurdles give the illusion of satiety, ultimately causing starvation. Worse, nurdles attract toxic chemicals known as Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), which accumulate in the food chain.

The Great Global Nurdle Hunt aims to gather as much data as possible to build an accurate representation of the global nurdle problem. Volunteers record the number of nurdles they find in a certain area and submit their results for analysis. The Great Global Nurdle Hunt

 welcomes submissions of nurdle findings from everyone, all year round and encourages you to get involved with this important project. 

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For more information contact: info@scarabtrust.org.uk

Image: Plastic on Fistral Beach - MJ