Squatting in the strandline as a storm brewed on the horizon, I combed through the debris with tweezers. I spotted my first nurdle almost immediately. Covered in sand, the pale plastic pellet blended almost perfectly into the background. Next to me, a woman scraped the top layer of sand away and plopped it in a bucket of seawater. As she stirred, several nurdles drifted to the surface.

“It’s impossible to make a dent,” I thought. Despite removing more than 3,000 pieces of microplastic during our cleanup, thousands more winked at us from the sand as we left Camber Sands beach. These tiny pre-production plastic pellets, called nurdles, are littering UK beaches in such numbers that beach cleanups can’t keep up.

“I think removing all the nurdles would be an impossible task. They’re everywhere,” says Andy Dinsdale, the founder of the East Sussex-based environmental organisation Strandliners.

Nurdles are tiny plastic pellets – around the size of a lentil – made from fossil fuels, which are used to make plastic products. Huge containers of them are transported around the world by road, rail and ship before they are melted down and made into all the plastic items we use in our day-to-day lives.

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Christy Leavitt is the plastics campaign director at the conservation group Oceana. She agrees that removing all the plastic pellets from our oceans and coastlines is “simply not possible”. Studies have shown there are more than 170tn plastic particles floating in the world’s oceans.

So, why even bother with cleanups? For Dinsdale and his team, cleanups help to gather data, to illustrate how bad the nurdle problem really is. Evidence from cleanups has led to legislation such as the plastic bag tax and a ban on single-use items such as cotton buds.

Organising them without recording the data would mean “we’ll be doing that for the rest of our lives”, says Beverley Coombs, a Strandliners volunteer. “If you just pick, bag and bin, nobody knows what the rubbish is. How on earth can you stop it coming back?”

Nurdle spills can occur when cargo ships capsize or drop containers overboard to preserve life during stormy seas – something allowed by international maritime law. Once in the ocean, these pellets can kill marine life and have catastrophic effects on the environment.

Dani Whitlock, a project officer at the Scottish charity Fidra says nurdle pollution rates are increasing despite voluntary industry measures that attempt to prevent it. She attributes these pellet spills to mismanagement, poor handling and lack of accountability.

Since the beginning of last year, there have been four major reported pellet spills across the world – with millions washing up in France, India, Dubai and Spain. And Fidra’s annual Great Nurdle Hunt reports finding pellets in 93% of all its surveys. “These voluntary measures are not working,” says Whitlock.

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Leavitt says the problem needs to be dealt with at source, “and that’s at the production level”. About 15m tonnes of plastic waste is poured into our oceans each year. “That’s roughly equivalent to dumping two garbage trucks full of plastic into the ocean every minute,” she says. Once this plastic waste reaches the ocean, it is incredibly difficult to remove.

While many members of the public are doing their best to reduce their own plastic waste, governments and plastic-producing companies need to be the ones to solve nurdle pollution. Producing less plastic and regulating its discharge into waterways is much more effective than trying to clean up the mess after plastic pollution has already reached the ocean.

It’s “one of the most straightforward plastic problems we have because there is a solution”, says Whitlock. Better legislation, regulation and independent supply chain audits globally – including labelling nurdles as hazardous so they are treated with care during transport – could reduce pellet pollution by about 95%, she says.

Dinsdale doesn’t understand why plastic-producing companies aren’t interested in protecting their raw materials. “They’re losing money. It’s in their own interest not to lose it,” he says.

Whitlock agrees. “It’s just mind-boggling that we’re not working towards that solution together.”

In the meantime, Dinsdale and beachcombers like him aren’t planning on stopping their hunts. If their efforts only involved cleanups, it might be a different story: “That would be depressing because you would never end,” he says.

But gathering evidence on the state of nurdle pollution gives conservation organisations more power to lobby for change, Dinsdale says. “We might be small in the grand scheme of things but we’re helping in a proactive way rather than a reactive way.”

Officials in northern Spain have issued alerts after millions of tiny plastic pellets spilled by a cargo ship off Portugal last month washed up on beaches, raising fears of environmental damage and triggering a political row.

Spanish state prosecutors have also launched an investigation after receiving information suggesting the non-biodegradable pellets could be toxic.

The emergency began on 8 December after the Toconao, a Liberia-registered vessel chartered by the shipping firm Maersk, lost six containers while sailing about 50 miles (80km) off the coast of northern Portugal. One container held 1,000 25kg sacks of the tiny balls, which are used in the manufacture of plastic products.

In the weeks since the spill, millions of the pellets have washed up on beaches in north-west Spain, prompting a clean-up operation by regional workers and volunteers.

On Tuesday, the regional governments of Galicia and neighbouring Asturias issued level 2 alerts, which will allow more personnel and resources to be assigned to the task as well as logistical assistance from the Spanish government’s environment and transport ministries.

Alfonso Rueda, the regional president of Galicia, said there was still time to stop more pellets washing up on the shoreline. “There are hundreds of sacks right now that have not reached the coast,” he said on Tuesday. “The time to collect them, or at least to try, is now that they are at sea. It seems there will be currents these days that will make it a little easier.”

The regional government of Asturias said it has raised the alert level after detecting “a significant increase in the strip of coast affected and an increase in the number of spots identified”.

The incident has led to a political row between Galicia’s conservative regional government and the socialist-led central government. Rueda said the central government had known about the spillage for two weeks before it informed his administration on 4 January. The Galician government has also said it is satisfied that the pellets are not toxic.

Asked why he had waited so long to secure central government help by declaring the level 2 alert, Rueda said his team had found out about the situation only “a few days ago”, while the national government “has known the details for a month”.

Spain’s environment minister, Teresa Ribera, had previously said the government was ready to help as soon as its assistance was sought.

“The pellets have reached beaches in Asturias,” she said in a tweet on X on Monday. “I’ve called the regional president and told him – just as I told Alfonso Rueda yesterday – that the government is available to help. Our teams are ready to respond as soon as they’re called on.”

Voters in Galicia go to the polls next month in a regional election. As the political squabbling continued, ecological groups called for a quick and coordinated response, saying the situation was already reminiscent of the confused reaction to the disastrous Prestige oil spill in Galicia two decades ago.

In a joint letter, Friends of the Earth, Ecologists in Action, Greenpeace, SEO/Birdlife and the WWF said there could be “no repeat of the nightmare management of an environmental crisis”.

“Environmental organisations are monitoring the Galician regional government’s reaction to the spill with concern as it serves as a bitter reminder of the black tide of the Prestige in 2002 and 2003 and the lack of coordination with the central government,” the letter said.

“We ask that no partisan use is made of the catastrophe and that joint efforts are made to tackle the long-term impact of the spill, to determine responsibilities, and to reinforce the rules on the production, transport and use of plastics.”

The European Commission warned of the dangers posed by plastic pellets three months ago.

“Once in the environment, these small particles of plastics do not biodegrade and cannot be removed,” it said in October. “They accumulate in animals, including fish and shellfish, and are consequently also consumed by humans in food. They contribute to the pollution with microplastics, which have been found in marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems as well as in food and drinking water.”

Cutting boards, non-stick pans, mixing bowls, even tea bags: in the kitchen, plastics can be hidden in plain sight.

It’s something that Jessica Brinkworth, an anthropology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, realized once she began looking for ways to cut down on plastic use in her own kitchen after her workplace started doing the same. Although much of her lab’s waste was unavoidable – plastics are key for the sterile medical research they conduct – it still made her uncomfortable. That discomfort was only magnified in her own home, where she knew plastics were “largely a matter of convenience”.

“Large macroplastics are a problem worldwide because we dump them on the shores of other nations,” she says, where things like plastic bottles block access to food for coastal nations and kill about a million people a year due to flooding, landslides and other environmental disasters. Much smaller plastics, like micro and nanoplastics, which are tinier than a grain of rice, “pose a whole other level of problem. Many types of plastic are endocrine disruptors,” meaning they disrupt the excretion and use of insulin, which can lead to obesity and reproductive health disorders.

Every year, we dump 10m tons of plastic into the ocean, killing a million marine animals annually. That plastic can work its way into our bodies from both the food we eat (most of our seafood contains microplastics) to how we cook in the kitchen.

“Plastic pollution is one of the most visible signs of the environmental crisis we’re facing with microplastics discovered on the highest mountains as well as in the depths of the oceans,” said Paula Chin, a senior policy adviser on consumption at the World Wildlife Fund. “They’ve also been found in our bodies with estimates suggesting we’re consuming a credit card’s worth of plastic each week.”

Brinkworth says solving our plastics problem will require massive regulatory action and coordination by federal and world governments, but that there are important ways consumers can make a difference.

“There’s so much that we’re producing in our kitchens that’s environmentally and publicly hazardous. But the reason why it’s in our kitchens is because that’s been made available to us,” she says. “One of the great acts of the plastics and petroleum industry has been to convince us that it’s a personal responsibility.”

That said, Brinworth notes that the climate crisis is happening now – and many people won’t survive waiting for innovative plastics recycling solutions to save the day. She encourages people interested in combating plastic pollution to reduce, reuse and recycle – but most importantly to refuse, when they are able. “Consumers can take responsibility probably in the most effective way by trying to affect government change.”

Here are Brinkworth’s and other experts’ tips on ways to reduce and refuse plastic waste in your kitchen.

Shopping

Plastics are omnipresent at the grocery store – think of the cellophane used to cover pre-chopped mushrooms, milk cartons, and packages of pre-sliced meats. It’s difficult to entirely avoid them, but, Chin says, “there are ways to cut-back.”

The first and most important way to do that, she says, is to simply buy less. “Make a conscious choice to avoid buying products you don’t need and when you do, look for products that are made from sustainably sourced natural materials.” The more you cook from scratch, the less plastic you’ll use from packaged or processed foods (think about all of the plastic used to wrap frozen vegetables, cover chopped produce and package frozen dinners).

When shopping, not just for groceries but also for kitchen appliances, Chin recommends first questioning whether you need something, then trying to reuse what you already have, before finally looking “for options which include recycled content.” That won’t save you the health risks of plastic use, but it can have a significant environmental impact. According to a 2021 report from the World Economic Forum, reusing just 10% of plastic products, could prevent almost half of annual plastic ocean waste.

If you haven’t already gotten in the habit of taking your own bags to the grocery store, start – and while you’re at it, consider adding your own reusable produce bags. But shopping at traditional grocery stores isn’t your only option: more zero-waste shops are springing up across the country (where you can bring your own containers or use non-plastic ones the store offers to take home exactly as many lentils or bunches of broccoli as you’ll use) and plenty of farmer’s markets allow customers to bring their own glass jars or produce bags so you’re not toting home plastic cartons. Depending on where you live, you might even be able to swap plastic milk cartons for glass bottles (and rekindle the nostalgia of a visit from the milkman) by opting into a milk delivery service.

Cooking

You might not think there’s very much plastic in your kitchen if you’re only thinking about clear packaging, but almost every household is home to at least some plastic kitchen appliances. Think about your cutting board, mixing bowls, non-stick (Teflon-coated) pans, spatulas, blender or food processor.

Plastic appliances can release high levels of micro and nanoplastics, says Brinkworth, especially if we’re heating with, chopping on or blending in them.

Earlier this year, researchers at North Dakota State University published a study that found that chopping on plastic cutting boards can release millions of microplastics each year. Other recent research has counted the microplastics released from using plastic mixing bowls, blenders, kettles and non-stick pans.

The best way to avoid that? Switch your plastic appliances out for metal, glass or wooden ones where possible, says Brinkworth. But be careful when looking at wood or bamboo appliances that you consider the glue used to hold them together. Even just the glue used to seal a tea bag can release billions of microplastics.

Storing

Plastic wrap has easily one of the greatest impacts on the environment: we only ever use it once and it can take close to 1,000 years to decompose in landfills. And plastic packaging – think cling wrap, sandwich bags and candy wrappers – makes up almost half of the plastic waste that ends up in the ocean. It’s so convenient that it can be difficult to imagine any good alternatives, but Brinkworth encourages consumers to try reusable alternatives.

The price point for reusable cling wrap can be high, which is why Brinkworth and her family made their own. It’s pretty simple: cut cotton fabric to the sizes you’d like your cling wrap to be, lay them out on a baking sheet in the oven and cover them with beeswax (Brinkworth recommends adding jojoba oil to make the wraps more flexible), and bake for two to three minutes. If all that sounds like too much work though, you can pick up reusable beeswax cling wrap at many grocery stores.

Brinkworth says the reusable cling wrap is easy to clean, but will eventually start to flake. “Honestly, a simpler solution for most people would be just to use mason jars,” which you can find for about a dollar a piece at many thrift stores. In general, switching to glass jars (or glass storage containers, if they’re in your budget) is better for the environment and your body. Plastic containers can leech cancer-causing and hormone-disrupting chemicals into your food.

Cleaning

If you thought you had cleared your kitchen of plastics, the prevalence of plastic in your cleaning routine might surprise you. Dishwasher pods get the worst rap (the polyvinyl alcohol wrapping doesn’t break down in water treatment plants), but if the interior of your dishwasher is made out of plastic, it’s releasing microplastics with every wash. Few dishwashers have no plastic whatsoever, says Brinkworth, but she recommends splurging for a stainless steel interior if you can afford it (or hand washing when your life allows).

Handwashing won’t get rid of all the plastics in your kitchen though either – if you’re using liquid dish soap, it’s likely packaged in a plastic bottle. Fortunately, a few brands have started selling dish soap bars and liquid dish soap packaged in cardboard. Most sponges are made of plastic too, but more stores are selling natural sponges and dishcloths as demand increases. Those can be worthwhile alternatives to keep plastic out of your own body and from slipping down the drain.

Tesco is scrapping plastic packaging from its own-brand pocket tissues, in a move that the UK’s largest supermarket says will eliminate almost 35 tonnes of new soft plastic waste each year.

It is the first big supermarket to make the change, which will result in the individual packaging and the wrapping around multipacks of Tesco tissues in its gentle white and balm ranges being replaced with Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper packs.

Tesco started the rollout before Christmas, and said the changes would keep more than 55m pieces of soft plastic from entering landfills and the wider environment every year.

“Unlike boxes of tissues, the pocket version tends to be used on the go and can all too easily become litter,” Tesco’s campaign manager Courtney Pallett said. “The new paper packaging works just as well as the old plastic wrap but is more sustainable.”

Tesco is one of the major signatories of the UK Plastics Pact, which is led by the sustainability charity Wrap and has set targets to hit by 2025, including eliminating problem plastic and ensuring that 100% of plastic packaging can be reusable, recyclable or compostable.

In its latest annual report, the pact’s directors detailed their progress to date, which includes the removal of 730m plastic items from supermarket shelves since 2018, and the fact that rigid plastic packaging is now 94% recyclable.

Tesco says the company has removed almost 2.2bn pieces of plastic from its operations since 2019. That includes wrapping around multipack tins and greetings cards, lids from products including wipes, yoghurts and creams, and plastic bags from its grocery deliveries.

However, part of that pressure has come from government-mandated changes, including rules that came into force in 2020 to restrict the supply of single-use plastic straws, drink stirrers and cotton buds, and a tax introduced in 2022 on plastic packaging that was not at least 30% recycled.

Meanwhile, the consumption of single-use supermarket plastic bags has fallen by 98% since retailers in England began charging for them in 2015.