Twenty-seven students from the American Community School of Abu Dhabi went on a nurdle hunt at Saadiyat Beach in search of tiny plastic pieces hidden in the sand. Nurdles are small plastic pellets, about the size of a lentil, that serve as the raw material for manufacturing everyday plastic products. While they are useful in production, they often spill during transport or handling and end up in our oceans, where they pose a serious threat to marine life.
Armed with sifters and cups, students carefully combed through the sand, collecting the pellets they found. What looked like harmless specks at first glance quickly revealed the scale of the issue. Each nurdle removed from the shoreline was one less piece of plastic that could be mistaken for food by fish or seabirds.
To put the scale into perspective, it takes about 600 nurdles to make a single small plastic water bottle. Over the course of the morning, students collected approximately 445 grams of nurdles, an estimated 13,000 pellets. In addition to gathering nurdles, they conducted a broader beach cleanup, removing debris that could harm marine life along the coast.
Beyond the cleanup itself, the experience was an opportunity for students to see firsthand how global environmental challenges can appear right in our own backyard. It sparked conversations about responsible consumption, corporate accountability, and the importance of reducing plastic waste.
As one student said, “Once you see a nurdle, you cannot unsee it”.
