Pieces of recycled plastic, used by wastewater treatment plants, were found on the beaches Hendaye, the bay of Txingudi and the banks of the Bidassoa.
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Unusual plastic pollution was observed on the beaches of the Basque Country after the bad weather which affected the region at the end of last week, reports France Bleu Pays basque, Monday December 12.
>>> Floods: spectacular floods hit the Basque Country, Béarn and the Hautes-Pyrénées.
Since Saturday, filter media have been found in particular on the beaches of Hendaye, the bay of Txingudi and the banks of the Bidassoa, the coastal river of the Basque Country. These are pieces of recycled plastic material that have been used since the early 2000s by many wastewater treatment plants to filter wastewater and collect unwanted particles.
The Surfrider Foundation Europe discovered the same plastic rings on the banks up to 12 kilometers upstream, on the border between Gipuzkoa and Navarre, two provinces of Spain. According to the organization, these are discharges from a wastewater treatment plant. They were carried in large quantities to the ocean by the high flows of the swollen river during the weekend floods. A call for witnesses has been launched by the Surfrider Foundation Europe in order to trace the source of the pollution.
New pollution alert #biomedia in Hendaye!
Incredible to see that this piece of #plastic continues to pollute the ocean and aquatic environments while its role is to clean up water #plasticpollution
The continuation ⤵ [Thread 1/4] pic.twitter.com/6pwPvbwJBs
– Surfrider Europe (@surfridereurope) December 13, 2021
The cleaning services of the city of Anglet, for their part, picked up five tons of plastic on the beaches on Monday morning, an amount described as unusual.