How a shipping disaster shows us possible new technological frontiers.

henrybai091
Jun 28, 2021
3 min read

Updated: Aug 16, 2021

X-Press Pearl

What happened?

Imagine you’re walking on the beach, enjoying the magnificent breeze and the amazing view, then thousands of plastic pellets swarm your feet and choking the distinctive marine wildlife of the area. This is exactly what is happening in Sri Lanka following a fire aboard the container ship X-Press Pearl.

This was especially dangerous because the ship was carrying at least 81 containers full of toxic chemicals, including 25 tons of nitric acid. Other hazardous goods include 78 metric tons of nurdles, which are used in almost all plastic products. Additionally, potential leakage of the 350 tons of fuel onboard would make this situation even worse, as the fuel would pollute the waters and undoubtedly cause extremely adverse effects on the environment.

Effects of this incident have already been felt, with pictures surfacing on the internet of the plastic pellets that have drifted onshore and what that would mean to marine life in the area. This would dramatically affect the economy of Sri Lanka, especially the fisherman. Joshua Anthony, Head of the region fishing union, said that: “The ship dealt a death blow to our lives. “With the possibility of oil and chemical leakages on the horizon, this could blow up into Sri Lanka’s biggest environmental disaster in its history.

Plastic pellets on a Sri Lankan beach.

This event shows the awful effects that dangerous chemicals could potentially have on an ocean. So.....

What can we do to prevent this happening again?

Bio-degradable Plastics

It shows us that it is important to develop new technologies that could potentially replace nitric acid and nurdles. Nurdles are non-degradable, so they won’t be able to be decomposed by bacteria or other organisms. An idea that could be useful is biodegradable nurdles, this could help curb the effects of it in this incident. Biodegradable plastics would let organisms break the plastics into carbon dioxide, microbes, and biomass.

You might be thinking, biodegradable plastics must be more expensive for companies develop and produce than normal plastics. In the short term, yes, using normal plastics is much cheaper. But in the long term, developing biodegradable plastics would benefit a company. Using normal plastics would pose a danger to the planet, which in the future could affect the company. Also, with the growing possibility of stricter environmental regulations, using normal plastics could potentially harm the competitive advantage and public sentiment of a company. So, it would be prudent for company X to develop biodegradable products. You can learn more about biodegradable plastics here.

Biofuels

As I said before, X-Press Pearl was carrying 350 tons of fuel, this could cause severe damage towards the marine life and fishing industry. A possible solution to this issue is the use of biofuel. This is fuel that is constructed by a combination of corn, wheat, sugar beets, or other biomasses. Many benefits come with the usage of biofuels, which include cost efficiency, increased durability of engines, and the reduction of greenhouse cases. This fuel would pose less of a threat to marine life and so the dangers of the sinking of X-Press Pearl would be reduced. Find out more about biofuels here.

Countries and businesses realize the consequences of these types of events and they are taking action. Investments are being made in promising new technologies like the aforementioned biofuel and biodegradable plastics. For example, the US Department of Energy has recently invested $61.4 million for Biofuels research. With the introduction and use of these environmentally friendly products, the world will hopefully avoid another environmental disaster like this.