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River Rother

East Sussex

The River Rother rises near Rotherfield in East Sussex and flows 35 miles through the countryside before emptying into Rye Bay. Right alongside the coastline Nurdle has spent months protecting. It is one of the most ecologically important waterways in the South East.

But rivers don’t just carry water. Research has shown that 60 – 80% of all coastal plastic pollution originates from inland sources, making rivers the primary pathway for it to reach the sea. Every piece of plastic that enters the Rother has the potential to end up on a beach, in a saltmarsh, or inside the important wildlife that surrounds it.

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Tackling the Problem at the Source

While a brand new specialist machine is being built to further advance Nurdle’s operations at Camber Sands, the team is putting that time to work. Rather than waiting, Nurdle is heading upstream, deploying the team in the River Rother to remove macroplastics from the water before they have the chance to break down into the microplastics that are so much harder to collect.

The logic is simple but powerful. A plastic bottle pulled from a river today is thousands of microplastic fragments that will never reach the coastline tomorrow. Intervention at the source is one of the most effective tools we have.