(Saint John) A scientist has determined that the strange white clumps that intrigue Newfoundland fishermen are made of a plastic commonly found in adhesives. The origin of this mysterious sticky substance remains unknown.
Posted at 5:41 p.m.
Sarah Smellie
The Canadian Press
Hilary Corlett, an earth scientist at Memorial University, collected several of these sticky balls from a beach in Arnold’s Cove, Newfoundland, last month. She then gave them to a colleague to test. The results, she said, came in late last week: They were polyvinyl acetate, which is often found in glue.
“It’s pollution,” summarized M.me Corlett in an interview Tuesday. It’s plastic, it needs to be cleaned. »
Members of a Newfoundland and Labrador fishermen’s Facebook group began sharing photos of the strange substance in September, asking if anyone knew what it was. Group members made many suggestions, some more useful than others: slime molds, whale boogers or toutons – deep-fried balls of bread dough popular in Newfoundland breakfasts.
Mme Corlett was intrigued. She studies marine microplastics and figured she had to go get a sample for herself. She was surprised to find about twenty of these mysterious mounds upon her first steps on the small beach located about 100 kilometers northwest of St. John’s.
They smell like plastic, like “that smell you get when you walk into a Canadian Tire store,” she testified. Some bore imprints of rocks and pebbles, as if they had once been liquid.
They were slimy and “quite squishy,” but still firm, she said. When torn, the material had no pores.
She gave the samples to Memorial University chemistry professor Christopher Kozak, who put them through a series of tests. The substance remained intact even at temperatures above 180°C. Using a procedure to identify the individual elements of the substance, he determined that it was polyvinyl acetate.
Mr. Kozak did not respond to interview requests.
Environment Canada said last month that preliminary tests suggested the “mystery substance” could be of plant origin. The ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but said Friday that its scientists were analyzing the substance and officials could not speculate on what it might be or where it came from.
Mme Corlett said tests show the clumps are safe to touch, and she hopes beach cleanup efforts will be made to remove them.
She also hopes officials will work to determine where the substance came from and whether there are other clumps — perhaps much larger ones — on the ocean floor.
“I think understanding where it is in the ocean would be a good idea,” she said. Because I think it should be cleaned. »
