During Soil Scientist Dr Joanna Cloy’s ‘Fidra land and sea plastics’ session, you will discover what plastic pellets (or nurdles) are, hear about their impacts on marine ecosystems and hunt for them on the beach. You will also learn about sources and impacts of plastics on soil biodiversity, looking at examples of plastics and common soil creatures.

In the first half of the session, you will discover what plastic pellets (or nurdles) are and find out about their impacts on marine ecosystems before taking part in a 15-minute nurdle hunt on North Berwick beach. In the second half of the session, you will learn about sources and impacts of plastics on soil biodiversity. You will get to see different plastics recovered from soils as well as a selection of different soil creatures (hopefully earthworms, slugs, millipedes, centipedes etc) that are common in UK soils.