Nurdle Patrol

Nurdle Patrol is a citizen science project led by the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute. We are looking to gather information about where nurdles are located across North America, remove the nurdles from the environment, and create awareness about the nurdle issue. Nurdles are small plastic pellets that are the basis of everything plastic. They are small and look like food to animals, and they absorb toxic chemicals such as PCBs and DDTs in the environment, so could have negative impacts. Many studies are currently being done looking at possible linkages of chemical absorption in microplastics and the effects in the food chain. All data gathered is put into an interactive mapping website at www.NurdlePatrol.org for easy access by volunteers for printing maps of all the data collected.