No plastics treaty on the horizon — yet plastic ‘nurdles’ are spilling across the Indian coastline.

While negotiators in Geneva walked away without a plastics treaty—’deadlocked’ over production limits and toxics—Kerala’s beaches kept telling the story for us: plastic nurdles and mixed waste washing ashore, pellets showing up in nets (and sometimes in fish), and families asking the same questions after every brown, foamy tide: Is it safe to fish? Who’s responsible? Will the plastic just keep coming?

The talks ended with no deal and no clear roadmap, leaving frontline communities to absorb the shock yet again.

The plastic pellets along a beach in Thiruvananthapuram. Photo: K A Shaji

On the sand, the crisis is specific and immediate. After the MSC ELSA-3 shipwreck, nurdles have been turning up along Thiruvananthapuram’s coast—from Veli to Kovalam—prompting state-led clean-ups with police and volunteers, logistics to bag and remove recovered pellets, and rising concern from fishers as pellets enter fishing grounds.

“When ingested by marine life, these pellets introduce a cocktail of toxins directly into the food web,” says Joseph Vijayan, an environmental researcher from Thiruvananthapuram. 

Reports have documented widespread beaching, official response efforts, and calls for compensation and long-term monitoring. If pellets behave like “toxic sponges” and are easily mistaken for food, how do we keep them out of nets and plates—and who pays when they aren’t?

When plastic waste hit’s the coast – who pays?

Seeing a fish with nurdles in its mouth is the moment the crisis stops being abstract. It’s not just litter—it’s a governance gap landing on Kerala’s beaches, on dinner plates and in fishers’ incomes. So what can be done—and who pays?

Coastal families shouldn’t shoulder the costs of cargo spills and policy delays. Our Waste to Wealth model proves that community-owned services can capture household waste upstream, create jobs and keep plastic out of lanes, canals and surf.

But communities cannot be asked to clean up industrial pellet losses as well. That demands clear accountability—polluter-pays, enforceable handling standards, and rapid response—so the burden isn’t pushed onto the very people living by the tide.

Until those rules are in place, we’ll keep scaling what works locally; meanwhile, will shippers, insurers and regulators finally fund the protections coastal wards deserve

Our local solution: Waste to Wealth India — turning plastic into opportunity

What if every coastal ward had a simple, reliable waste system that people could run themselves?

That’s the idea behind Waste to Wealth. We build practical, scalable, community-owned services in places that have historically been left out of formal waste collection—so plastic is captured before it reaches the tide.

In dense coastal neighbourhoods, uncollected waste ends up in lanes, canals and the surf. Our door-to-door collection flips that script by employing local women and youth to transform waste into a source of income.

Program Impact so far:

• 294 households + 111 businesses served by door-to-door collection
• 97 local jobs created (women and youth)
• 5.5+ tonnes of waste removed, including >2 tonnes of plastic captured before the ocean
• 2.5 million single-use items eliminated each year; 63 businesses now 100% single-use-plastic-free

In the absence of binding rules, community-owned systems offer practical protection and capability-building today, creating the runway for future regulatory action

Here’s our invitation: help us expand our routes and jobs, connect us with businesses and funders, and share this story so more people can see solutions that work on the ground.

Because a treaty may be distant, but action doesn’t have to be, and when communities lead, partners back them, and the data is there, Kerala’s coast and communities can speak for themselves and be heard in every room where decisions are made.

Help remove waste from India’s coastline and empower local women—click HERE.

Articles Referenced:

Plastics treaty context

• Plastics treaty talks collapse without a deal after “chaotic” negotiations — Climate Home News, 15 Aug 2025. Climate Home News

• Analysis: What can break the global deadlock over plastics? — Reuters, 20 Aug 2025. Reuters

• Plastic deadlock — Asia News Network, 19 Aug 2025. Asia News Network

• Landmark plastic pollution treaty talks collapse over curbs on production — ITV News, 15 Aug 2025. ITVX

Kerala nurdle spill & response

• MSC ELSA-3 sinking: Tiny plastic pellets found along Thiruvananthapuram coast — Down To Earth, 28 May 2025. Down To Earth
• Plastic pellets from sunken ship mar Kovalam beaches — Times of India, June 2025. The Times of India
• Shipwreck raises concerns about ecological damage in Kerala — Mongabay India, 31 May 2025. Mongabay-India
• Kerala government to tackle nurdles washed ashore — Hindustan Times, 29 May 2025. Hindustan Times
  
• Plastic Waste Drifts Ashore After MSC Boxship Sinks — The Maritime Executive, 31 May 2025. Maritime Executive
• Buoyant, the size of a lentil and almost impossible to recover: how nurdles are polluting the oceans — The Guardian, 12 Aug 2025. theguardian.com