Before pastry chef Naleen Chathuranga started work at his beachfront hotel, he would walk along the vast golden coast, fringed with coconut palms.
But this piece of paradise in Sri Lanka has now turned black as debris from a sunken ship continues to wreak environmental and economic havoc.
And the worst hazard comes in the form of millions of plastic pellets called nurdles.
“Nurdles are everywhere now,” says Naleen, digging his toes into the sand to unearth dozens of the tiny pellets.
The X-Press Pearl caught fire in May last year and sank, spilling its cargo. Since then, endless nurdles – the raw materials nearly all plastic goods are made from – have been washing up along the coastline for hundreds of miles.
A UN report called it the “single largest plastic spill” in history, with about 1,680 tons of nurdles released into the ocean.
For the fishing community, there are fears it could be felt for a long time.
Fisherman Veerapalli Shiva, 51, says: “We’ve been fishing here since November, and not a single day was lucrative. We only find small fishes now.
"Large fishes, who bag a better price in the market, are missing. This has never happened before.”
Instead the nurdles keep coming, piling up on the decks of the fishing boats.
The disaster sparked a clean-up effort with 60,000 bags collected so far.
But while the biggest, most visible piles have been removed, it’s just the tip of the iceberg, as many are buried up to two metres under the sand.
The problem is not isolated to Sri Lanka.
Nurdles are the second-largest micropollutant source in the sea, after tyre dust, with 230,000 tons ending up in oceans every year.
Mistaken for food by many animals, nurdles and the toxins coating them can enter the food chain.
More than 6,000 nurdle hunts have taken place on beaches worldwide, including the UK, cleaning up while also putting pressure on politicians and plastic manufacturers by highlighting the horror. Visit nurdlehunt.org.uk for details.
