Port of Tyne criticised over River Tyne plastic nurdle spill response

The editor of the industry publication Maritime Journal, Debbie Mason, said Port of Tyne should have told people about the spill sooner and its silence on this point in the immediate aftermath was “very strange”.

“This happened on the 19th, the Sunday, they put out their first press release [referencing the spillage] on the 23rd,” she said.

“This is four days later.”

The Port of Tyne did release a statement on 19 July, detailing the collision but not the spillage, and Mason said she could not understand why it did not specifically address the spillage sooner, given the scale of the incident.

“This is a really big port, they should have operations in place, they should have cameras,” she said.

“They should have known.”

If the boom had been deployed sooner it would have stopped the nurdles travelling down the river onto the shores, she said.

She said port bosses had “so many questions” to answer, including how the crane was involved when it was on the quayside, who was to blame for the incident itself, and who would be accountable.