New research from an international team of scientists— including Mona Wells, director of climate science at The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University—finds significant flaws in the environmental management of the container ship industry and recommends new methods to streamline environmental impact assessments of container ship disasters.
Their research was published in two papers in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, centering around the May 2021 X-Press Pearl container ship disaster.
Considered one of the worst marine ecological shipping disasters and the world’s worst spill of nurdles (plastic pellets used in manufacturing), the X-Press Pearl container ship caught on fire and burned for 12 days before sinking in the coastal waters of Sri Lanka in May 2021.
