'I won’t let up' - North East Mayor vows that a ship's owners will pay for the River Tyne nurdle spill
The North East Mayor has vowed to continue pressing a container ship’s insurers to pay for the cost of the River Tyne nurdle spill.
The owners and insurers of the container ship which spilled round a billion nurdles in the Port of Tyne have yet to comment publicly on the incident, or its effects, almost seven weeks after it happened.
The berthed ship, BG Orange, collided with Wind Orca on July 19, spilling around 25 tonnes of the tiny plastic pellets from two containers. The nurdles have since washed up on North-East’s sands, some as far away as 30 miles south and with potentially dire environmental consequences.
The 170m BG Orange was only built in 2024 and sails under the flag of Portugal. The Gazette understands the cargo ship is currently moored in Rotterdam.
Rotterdam is also where the ship’s operators, BG Freight Line, is based. The company is “a full subsidiary of the Peel Ports Group” which is based in Liverpool.
Clean up operation continues
Meanwhile, a painstaking clean-up operation is taking place to remove the nurdles from the region’s beaches, not least at South Shields where volunteers will be needed for some time yet.
Environmental charity the Tyne Rivers Trust fears the plastic pollutant could be around for “years to come”, while there could be devastating consequences for birds which eat it.
BG Freight Line’s website says: “A flexible approach and friendly, informal communication means we can always respond to special requests.”
‘I won’t let up’
However, on August 28 North East Mayor Kim McGuinness said: “It is great once again to see the pride and energy of local people to help clean up the mess the spillage made.
“I won’t let up on pressing the insurers for the BG Orange container ship to make sure the polluter pays.
“I’ve demanded they reveal what weight of nurdles have been recovered so far. This is no time for them to be scaling back their teams in our region when local people are still seeing nurdles wash up on the tide.”
BG has not yet responded publicly to Ms McGuinness and the issue of who is to pay for the damage is yet to be properly addressed.
However, the Gazette understands that there has been no “scaling back” on the response.
Port of Tyne CEO Matt Beeton says the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has been asked to enforce safer shipping methods, including recommendations for stowage and packaging.