Kochi, July 7 -- For the past three weeks, large stretches of the beaches in Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala have been glistening after tonnes and tonnes of plastic nurdles, or pellets, which are extremely hard to remove, washed up on the shores.

Barely two to three millimetres in size and white in colour, the nurdles, a foundational material in the manufacture of a wide variety of plastic products, are among the environmental after effects of the sinking of the Liberia-flagged cargo vessel MSC ELSA 3 around 14 nautical miles away from Kerala's coast on May 25. While all the 24 foreign crew onboard were rescued by the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard, the vessel along with all the cargo have sunk into the Arabian Sea.

According to ...