Overview
- Southern Water accepted responsibility after a screen failure at its Eastbourne wastewater works and said cleanup costs will be covered by a mix of shareholder funds and customer bills.
- Environment Agency sources say the release may be among England’s worst plastic pollution events, with estimates of about 10 tonnes or roughly 650 million beads.
- Beads have been confirmed from Hastings to Dungeness and inside Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, where Sussex Wildlife Trust is assessing damage to sensitive saltmarsh habitat.
- Volunteers and specialists are conducting a laborious cleanup using hand-picking, sieves and a custom microplastic vacuum that separates and collects the beads.
- The Environment Agency is considering upgrading the incident to category 1, the environment secretary has called for a thorough investigation, and past spills in 2010 and 2017 highlight the long-term persistence of these plastics.