ENVIRONMENTAL CHARITY FIDRA AND NURDLES POLLUTION FROM INEOS

That this House congratulates the environmental charity FIDRA, based in East Lothian, and Dr Becky Gait, her team and volunteers for their work to eliminate pollution by nurdle pellets used in the manufacture of plastics and for their work to encourage and require plastics producers, users, transporters and trade associations to introduce best practice in plastic pellet management called Operation Clean Sweep; notes that nurdle pellets attract and concentrate pollutants like DDT and PCBs to highly toxic levels; further notes that in a survey carried out by FIDRA volunteers in May 2018 on beaches in the Kingdom of Fife, 450,000 washed-up nurdles were collected in under two hours from one beach alone at North Queensferry; notes that this beach is less than 15 miles from the Ineos Polymers plant, and that unacceptable levels of nurdles are being detected on beaches as far west as Barra and as far north as Collieston in Aberdeenshire; and calls on the Government to to properly hold Ineos and the industry to account for this pollution and for strict enforcement action to be taken across the UK.