My Nurdle Mapping Experience: The Summer I Spent Digging in the Dirt for the Environment

Nurdles found in roots. Clara Jane Mack / 3RWK

Nurdles are tiny plastic pellets about 5 mm in size that are used to produce common plastic goods. Though the name “nurdle” may seem unassuming and harmless, millions of these little plastic pellets have polluted our environment and waterways. Over the summer, I had the privilege to work alongside Three Rivers Waterkeeper to expand their nurdle patrol sites along the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers and stream networks connected to them. My entire life, I have spent my summers in and out of the water. Nurdle patrolling became how I would be returning to the water and exploring it around Pittsburgh.

First Patrol

On the first scouting trip, I visited a combination of new sites and older sites that were patrolled in the past on the Monongahela. Patrolling for nurdles takes a good eye, but is easy to get the hang of. Once you find a nurdle around the search area, you set a timer for 10 minutes and record however many pellets you were able to collect during that time frame.

Nurdle Patrol Sampling Site. Clara Jane Mack / 3RWK

Whenever I went out with my bag and my set of gloves, I was always curious if anyone would approach me about why I was digging around in the dirt. The first trip I made, no one approached me. I did not find any evidence of nurdles until I made it to Riverside Park. The park is located between the bank of the river and a small neighborhood. The back porches were nicely decorated, kids' toys were scattered around the sidewalk, and there was one boy riding his bike up and down the street. I walked down the stairs to reach the water, and within 30 seconds of searching, I had found what I had been looking for.

When I look around industrial sites with beaten down riverbanks, I expect to find trash and other miscellaneous debris. It feels different when you find it at a park, where people come to take their kids. Riverside Park reminded me of the places my mom would take me during the summer. I used to be a big fan of walking up and down creeks with my friends, pretending we were discovering new uncharted territory in her developed suburban neighborhood. I collected the nurdles I found, waved to the kid on the bike, and drove to my next patrol site.

Second Patrol

The Mingo Creek Delta was my nurdle hotspot on the second trip. After a while of nurdle hunting, I noticed that nurdles start to jump out at me when I am digging through the dirt and driftwood. Nurdles look more like gems sometimes, their unnatural pristine white is eye-catching amongst the earthy mush they tend to hide in. Older nurdles lose that shine, but still are recognizable by their unyielding, uniform shape. 

On this patrol, a group of men fishing down at the Braddock Boat Ramp asked me if I was testing the water when I walked down with my Three Rivers Waterkeeper bag. This time someone was interested in what I was doing. I appreciate the opportunities I have to talk to people who are willing to listen about the work that I am doing around the rivers. These are people who actively decide to spend the free time they have on the water, fishing, hiking, or swimming. I know they care, or maybe at least they might care a little more than others. It was around lunch when I came down to the river and I thought about if these people like to come down on their break, to spend it by the Monongahela. It was a relief not to find any nurdles on the riverbank.

Nurdle Patrol Locations in Southwest Pennsylvania. 3RWK

Final Patrol

The last nurdle road trip began out in Zelienople, at a small creek hidden in the woods. I saw a young girl fishing with her grandfather around the bank that I was planning on searching for. There was a trend with fishers I met over this summer. Once again, someone had asked me what I was looking for. Shortly after I started my tried and true elevator pitch, the man nodded with an understanding I didn’t expect. He explained that the company he worked for used nurdles. They never called them by that name, but he was the first person I met to be able to describe back to me what I was searching for. 

The conversation I had with them kept me digging around the dirt that day. I could tell the granddaughter was passionate when she was explaining to me why she thought people needed to be kinder to the planet. She was rightly frustrated when she found discarded trash where she wanted to fish. Kids can recognize the injustice, but don’t understand the systems that allow pollution to be reprimanded with inconsequential fines instead of proper combative measures to dissuade companies from continuing to pollute the environment. I found the most nurdles patrolling along the Ohio River that day.

Reflections

After each patrol, I recorded the number of nurdles I found at each site on NurdlePatrol.org, an interactive map created to visualize nurdle pollution worldwide.  The ultimate goal of my summer was to help track and find new sites where interested volunteers could patrol when they had the free time. When nurdles are lost to our ecosystem they are classified as zero use plastic because they were never able to be melted into a plastic bottle or bag. These nurdles never became useful to anyone; they are and will only be pollution. The seemingly insurmountable weight of climate change often overwhelms those who want to do good for the environment. What I think keeps me going and helps others to not succumb to our plastic overlords is the idea that if we take it piece by piece, pellet by pellet, we take our planet in the right direction. It is impossible to collect every nurdle that lines our riverbanks, that is the band aid to the plastic spillage that is too fast for hands to keep up with. Tracking and monitoring is a step forward.