Toconao
The incident
On 8 December 2023, the container ship Toconao lost 6 containers overboard, including 1 of plastic pellets, some 80 km off the coast of Viana do Castelo (Portugal), close to the Spanish border.
On 13 December 2023, plastic pellets, both loose and whole sacks, began to wash up on the beaches of southern Galicia, close to the Portuguese border. Over the following days, plastic pellets were reported on the beaches of western then northern Galicia.
On 5 January 2024, the Regional Government of Galicia (Xunta de Galicia) activated alert level 1 of the marine pollution contingency plan (Plan Territorial de Contingencias por Contaminación Marina Accidental de Galicia, CAMGAL).
On 9 January, the alert was stepped up to level 2 for Galicia.
In Cantabria and Asturias, the land-based contingency plan was also activated, but on 24 January 2024 it was scaled down to alert level 1 (no detections since 19 January). The Spanish Basque Country remained at alert level 1 throughout the incident.
Aerial surveys
From 20 December 2023, SASEMAR (Sociedad de Salvamento y Seguridad Marítima) surveyed the entire area using satellite imagery (EMSA) and organised aerial surveys by the “Sasemar 102” plane.
On 9 January 2024, MRCC Lisboa stated that it had not received any reports of plastic pellets on the Portuguese coast.
On 14 January 2024, SASEMAR reported that:
- From the Portuguese border to the Cantabrian Sea, no containers or floating objects had been identified by the satellite imagery or overflights;
- SASEMAR had not received any reports of plastic pellets on the water from merchant or fishing vessels in the area;
- SASEMAR would continue to conduct aerial surveillance to search for objects on the water.
On 18 January 2024, the Spanish authorities announced that their flight plans had been modified to conduct “opportunity” overflights. No flights were devoted to spotting pollution.
On 19 January 2024, the Centro de Coordinación de Salvamento Bilbao (CSS Bilbao) indicated that it had not received any reports of detections on the shoreline or at sea.
Shoreline clean-up
As soon as the pellets began to wash up on the shoreline, many people spontaneously volunteered via social media to manually recover the plastic pellets. Sieves and hand brushes were used, as well as buckets of water for sink-float separation of the pellets and the sediment, to ensure that recovery was as selective as possible.
The regional governments of Galicia and the Basque Country commissioned Intecmar and AZTI respectively to track and forecast strandings of plastic pellets on the shoreline.
In Galicia, certain municipalities sent out personnel from their technical services to conduct manual clean-up operations in the affected areas. Intecmar advised against mechanical clean-up operations (in particular with beach cleaners), although they were conducted in certain areas.
On Corrubedo beach (Ribeira municipality, Portugal), 40 then 18 sacks of plastic pellets were collected on 13 and 14 December 2023 respectively.
On 15 January 2024, the regional government of Galicia reported that the equivalent of 92 sacks with a capacity of 25kg of plastic pellets, i.e. 2.3 tonnes, had been collected. 4.2 tonnes of other plastics were also recovered on the beaches. The total quantity of plastic pellets lost at sea was 26 tonnes.
No information is available on whether the lost container was located and whether the sacks of plastic pellets were still being released or had all escaped. The government of the Basque Autonomous Community (Euskadi) fitted a boat in the port of Santurtzi with a special pump and a fine-mesh net for use at sea if necessary.