What’s plastic resin pellet?

Plastic resin pellets are small granules generally with shape of a cylinder or a disk with a diameter of a few mm. These plastic particles are industrial raw material transported to manufacturing sites where “user plastics” are made by re-melting and molding into the final products. Resin pellets can be unintentionally released to the environment, both during manufacturing and transport. The released resin pellets are carried by surface run-off, stream, and river waters eventually to the ocean. Resin pellets can also be directly introduced to the ocean through accidental spills during shipping. Because of their environmental persistence, they are distributed widely in the ocean and found on beaches all over the world. A growing production of plastic leads to a measurable increase in plastic pollution in the ocean. In 2001, we revealed the existence of various organic micropollutants (i.e., polychlorinated biphenyls : PCBs, DDE, and nonylphenol) in plastic resin pellets collected on beaches (Mato et al., 2001). Because the resin pellets accumulate organic pollutants such as PCBs and organochlorine pesticides and the pellets, distributed on world beaches, and collection and shipping of the pellets are easy, we propose Global Monitoring of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) using Beached Plastic Resin Pellets.