Cleanup operation under way after millions of plastic beads wash up on English beach.

Volunteers from a range of organisations and the general public are struggling to clean up millions of plastic beads which have washed up on the beach at Camber Sands, a popular tourist destination on the south coast of England. The beads, which cover about 2.5 km of the 5 km-long beach first appeared on Thursday 6 November 2025, and have been identified as biobeads, a type of plastic pellet used in wastewater treatment plants.

Volunteers cleaning up plastic beads from Camber Sands Beach in East Sussex, England. Strandliners.

Biobeads are typically about 5 mm in diameter, and have a rough surface to promote the growth of Bacteria, which aid the water treatment process. Typically wastewater is passed through large tanks containing millions of such beads, allowing the Bacteria growing on them to filter out nutrients. However, when released into the environment, this large surface are also serves as an ideal growing space for marine Algae, which makes the beads resemble a food item to many marine Animals, according to environmental campaign group Strandliners. Once such beads are ingested, they are more-or-less impossible for most Animals to expel, blocking the consumers digestive tract and killing them. 

Plastic biobeads covering a beach at Camber Sands. Rother District Council.

While the source of the beads is unclear, local MP Helena Dollimore, who has been taking part in the cleanup efforts, has contacted  Southern Water, the company responsible for water treatment in the area (and who have been repeatedly fined for discharging untreated sewage), requesting an explanation for the event. Southern Water has stated that it is cooperating with an investigation by the Environment Agency and Rother District Council, and that its own investigations have found that water quality at Camber Sands has been unaffected by the presence of the beads.

Plastic biobeads on the beach at Camber Sands. Strandliners.

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Homes evacuated after landslide in East Sussex, southern England.

A number of homes have been evacuated following a landslide in the town of St Leonards in the county of East Sussex on the southern coast of England, on Wednesday 15 November 2023. The landslide occurred on a sandstone cliff between two rows of Victorian houses, and is thought to have been triggered by high rainfall associated with Storm Ciarán, which battered Western Europe at the beginning of November. Landslides are a common problem after severe weather events, as excess pore water pressure can overcome cohesion in soil and sediments, allowing them to flow like liquids. Approximately 90% of all landslides are caused by heavy rainfall. The area was affected by a smaller landslide on 5 November, prompting local authorities to evacuate the residents of eleven properties, most of whom were later allowed to return. However, rainfall levels have remained high across southern England since the storm, and on 15 November a second, larger, landslide occurred, demolishing a conservatory at the rear of one of the properties, and provoking new evacuations.

A landslide on a cliff between two rows of houses in St Leonards, southern England, which led to houses being evacuated. Sussex News and Pictures.

Storm Ciarán was detected as a low pressure system over the Celtic Sea by the UK Meteorological Office on 29 October, at which time it was hoped it would bring high winds on both sides of the English Channel before dissipating. However, the storm underwent explosive cyclogenesis, a process in which a low pressure system deepens suddenly creating a much larger storm, the causes of which are not fully understood. This led to the air pressure falling to 953.3 mb in Plymouth, the lowest pressure ever recorded in the UK in November, a tornado forming on the island of Jersey, and high winds battering Europe as far east as the Czech Republic and Albania. Twenty one people died as a result of the storm; eleven in Italy, four in France, two in Belgium, and one each in Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and Albania.

Storm Ciarán on 2 November 2023. Netweather.

Ocean storms form due to heating of air over the sea, usually in tropical zones. As the air is heated the air pressure drops and the air rises, causing new air to rush in from outside the forming storm zone. If this zone is sufficiently large, then it will be influenced by the Coriolis Effect, which loosely speaking means the winds closer to the equator will be faster than those further away, causing the storm to rotate, clockwise in the northern hemisphere and anticlockwise in the southern hemisphere.

The formation of a cyclonic storm system. Natural Disaster Management.

Whilst the high winds associated these storms is extremely dangerous, the real danger from such storms is often the flooding. Each millibar drop in air pressure can lead to a 1 cm rise in sea level, and large storms can be accompanied by storm surges several meters high. This tends to be accompanied by high levels of rainfall, caused by water picked up by the storm while still at sea, which can lead to flooding, swollen rivers and landslides; which occur when waterlogged soils on hill slopes lose their cohesion and slump downwards, over whatever happens to be in their path.

The formation and impact of a storm surge. eSchoolToday.

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Court issues £28 220 in fines and penalties for releasing non-native Crustaceans into the Englich Channel.

A court in England has issued fines and penalties of £28 220 to two Buddhists for releasing 361 American Lobsters, Homarus americanus, and 35 Dungeoness Crabs, Metacarcinus magister, (also an American species, named after Dungeoness in Washington State, not the headland of the same name in Kent) into the English Channel. Zhixiong Li and Ni Li were charged at Brighton Magistrates Court on 20 September 2017 under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, for releasing the animals obtained from a Fish merchant in London and released at a Buddhist ceremony in Brighton on 15 June 2017.

An Amercican Lobster, Homarus americanus, caught on the coast of Maine. Monique Meadows/Lobsterland.

The majority of the Crustaceans are thought to have been recaptured swiftly, due to the prompt actions of Marine Management Organisation who were alerted to the problem by members of the party and worked with local fishermen to recover the animals.

A Dungeoness Crab, Metacarcinus magister. Biodiversity of the Central Coast.

Dungeoness Crabs are native to the Pacific coast of North America, but have been introduced to the Atlantic, and have become established from Alabama to North Carolina, making the species of great concern to conservationists elsewhere. American Lobsters are native to the east coast of America, and have not yet become established elsewhere. However it is known to be host to a wide variety of parasite species, which could potentially infect native Crustaceans.

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Nodosaurid teeth from the Early Cretaceous of southern England.

The Nodosaurids were a group of Ankylosaurid Dinosaurs that differed from other members of the group in having spines, rather than boney clubs, on the ends of their tails, and additional large spines on their shoulders. Most known Nodosaurids have been discovered in North America, but specimens are known from China, Antarctica and England.

In a provisional paper to be published in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica and available online from 13 March 2013, William Blows of the Department of Applied Biological Sciences at City University London and Kerri Honeysett of Bexhill on Sea in East Sussex describe four Nodosaurid teeth from the Isle of Wight and Bexhill on Sea. 

These are distinctive enough to state that they are from a Nodosaurid, but are not assigned to species level, since none of the Nodosaurid specimens known from England has preserved teeth, making it impossible to assign the teeth with confidence to any previously described species, or to say with confidence that they belong to a new species.

The first specimen comes from a plant dedris bed within the the Sudmore Point Sandstone at Sudmore Point east of Brook Chine on the Isle of Wight. It is Barremian in age (between 125 and 129.4 million years old). The Sudmore Point Sandstone is interpreted as having formed on a flat floodplain, with the debris bed representing a flood event. It contains large amounts of disarticulated plant and animal remains. The tooth is nearly complete, comprising both the crown and root, with a total length of 17 mm, 6 mm of which is the crown. 

The Isle of Wight specimen in (A) labial(?) view, (B) distal view and (C) lingual(?) view. Scale bar is 4 mm. Blows and Honeysett (2013).

The other three teeth come from Ashdown Quarry at Bexhill on Sea, where they were located by David Brockhurst, a noted amateur palaeontologist employed at the quarry. They were located within a conglomerate within the Wadhurst Clay Formation, of Valanginian age, making them between 132.9 and 139.8 million years old. 

The first of these is a 20.5 mm tooth with both crown and root, the crown comprising 7 mm of the total. The second is a partial crown 5 mm in heigh, without any root. The third is a 17 mm tooth of which 5 mm is the crown and the remainder is the root; the crown of this tooth appears somewhat worn down.

The first Bexhill on Sea specimen, complete tooth in (A1) lingual(?) view and  (A2) labial(?) view. Blows and Honeysett (2013).

The second and third Bexhil on Sea specimens. Partial tooth in shown in opposite views (B1 and B2), and complete tooth in (C1) lingual(?) view, (C2) distal view, (C3) labial(?) view. Blows and Honeysett (2013).

See also A new species of Ankylosaurid Dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Montana, New description of an Ankylosaurid Dinosaur from Mongolia and The Ashdown Maniraptoran. 

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