The pellets have come to public opinion due to the white tide detected on the Galician coast, a pollution episode investigated by the Environmental Prosecutor's Office. But these tiny plastic balls are an old and annoying acquaintance on the Costa Daurada, an enemy denounced by several environmental entities, the residents of the area and the Vila-seca City Council (Tarragonès).
La Pineda beach is one of the sandy areas in all of Europe with the greatest contamination by pellets. Sad record. “Two world records for pellet collection were broken in 2021 (700,000) and 2022 (two million),” recalls Jordi Oliva, co-founder of Good Karma Projects. Total cleaning is technically unfeasible. The key is to stop spills at source.
Good Karma Projectes is leading the fight against pellets together with Surfrider Foundation and has focused on the Costa Daurada and also on the Balearic Islands, where part of the pollution ends up.
The record at La Pineda beach is no coincidence. It is due to its geographical location, next to the petrochemical industrial estate, near the port of Tarragona and in the area of influence of the Francolí River. A perfect storm that attracted the interest of global environmental groups five years ago.
Public complaints have been made since 2018, before the media and competent bodies, such as the Tarragona Environmental Prosecutor's Office. The interest in general has been scarce despite the efforts, especially of environmentalists, to visualize the pollution problem: the pellets not only dirty the sand (it is estimated that only 10% of the total discharge reaches the sand) and the water of the sea and rivers. They also cause harm to marine fauna and human health. The fish accidentally swallow them and their meat ends up in the food chain. What happened in Galicia and the memory of the chapapote (2002) have given the Tarragona coast an opportunity to demand solutions. Environmentalists have their focus on Brussels.
After years of complaints, the only result so far is the recent opening by the Generalitat of thirteen information files to companies, most of them located in the petrochemical industrial estates of Tarragona.
The files, still in the investigation and evidence collection phase, will try to prove a priori what environmentalists have been trying to demonstrate for years in collaboration with the Vila-seca City Council: the origin of the pellets.
These are millimetric plastic balls that the industry uses as raw material. Pellet producers, in the spotlight, highlight that the problem is in the value chain, in the companies that transport, store and manipulate them.
Part of the chemical industry created a platform (Zero Pélets) in 2023 with the Generalitat to fight against leaks. “There are companies that take it seriously and others that don't. We feel very helpless,” insists Pere Segura, mayor of Vila-seca, critical of the role of the Government and outraged that his municipality is not part of Cero Pélets.
Its tiny size and negligence on the part of companies explain the constant leaks.
Repsol is one of the most active companies in trying to “minimize involuntary pellet losses.” It is also one of the thirteen companies registered by Acció Climàtica. “We will continue working, it is not acceptable that there are losses of pellets in the environment,” responded this week Jesús Sancho, director of the Repsol complex in Tarragona, when asked about the pellets.
