Beach Clean Champions: Why nurdles are the biggest pollution disaster you’ve never heard of Updated: July 17, 2021, 11:41 am Dr Lauren Smith and her dog, Tattie. Famous for its 400-strong colony of seals, nesting terns and beautiful sandy dunes, Newburgh Beach has recently become home to another, less pleasant resident: nurdles. Tiny pieces of plastic no larger than a lentil, nurdles are what plastic drinks bottles, bags, food containers and even car parts look like before they are processed. But instead of being on a factory floor ready for manufacturing, thousands of these plastic pellets are turning up on one particular north-east beach.