The incident occurred when the Wind Orca collided with the berthed container ship BG Orange, causing a quayside gantry crane to collapse and releasing plastic pellets, known as nurdles, into the water.<\/p>\n
While specialist teams continue to secure the damaged crane and vessel, the port says its rapid response pollution control strategy managed to contain the spill as much as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cResponding to the collision is a multi-faceted and complex salvage operation which cannot be hurried. Safety and the welfare of everyone working on the site is and must remain our priority,\u201d said a port spokesperson.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur response plan to the pellet spill was activated immediately we became aware of it. It involves a number of actions, including helping contain any further spill of pellets and getting boats out on the river as a matter of urgency to clear pellets from the water.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fully prepared<\/strong><\/p>\n In a testament to the preparedness of the port, it implemented its emergency response plan as soon as it became aware of the spill, deploying a floating boom around the BG Orange to prevent further releases and sending several boats onto the river to recover pellets from the water.<\/p>\n Damaged containers were also secured to reduce the risk of additional losses.<\/p>\n Some pellets have washed ashore on nearby beaches, although the non-toxic material is considered to present a very low public health risk.<\/p>\n The Port of Tyne said it is working with local authorities and partner agencies through the formal multi-agency Recovery Coordinating Group to manage both the salvage operation and the plastic pollution incident.<\/p>\n The port said it continues to work with customers to minimise operational disruption while progressing recovery efforts alongside local organisations and emergency agencies.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Port of Tyne has activated an immediate spill response following a vessel collision, containing a plastic pellet spill while minimising environmental impact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":6514,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2252,363,675,2637],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-6513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-projects-initiatives-greenport","tag-pollution-control","tag-port-of-tyne","tag-port-operations","tag-port-safety"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6515,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6513\/revisions\/6515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6513"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=6513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}