PITTSBURGH—In December 2023, NELC attorneys filed a Clean Water Act citizen suit against Styropek USA, Inc., alleging that the plastics-manufacturing giant illegally discharges small plastic pellets—commonly called “nurdles”—from a plant located approximately 20 miles outside of Pittsburgh.
Evidence cited in the complaint indicates that the process wastewater and stormwater discharged from the aging facility into Raccoon Creek, a tributary to the Ohio River, routinely contains large quantities of the nurdles manufactured on site.
Just short of a year after NELC filed suit, Styropek announced plans to stop production at the Raccoon Creek plant in 2025, acknowledging in a November 2024 press release that it is “an aging facility” that is unable to meet the company’s own “long-term goals and sustainability initiatives.”
Between the lawsuit’s filing and Styropek’s closure announcement, the vast potential for future nurdle releases at the facility has come into clearer focus.
Three Rivers Waterkeeper, a plaintiff in the suit and the source of much of the evidence cited in the complaint, has continued its monthly “nurdle patrols” of Raccoon Creek, consistently documenting the ongoing presence of nurdles emanating from the Styropek facility. On a boat ride to the site, NELC attorneys and representatives of co-plaintiff PennEnvironment witnessed nurdles floating just a few feet downstream of Styropek’s wastewater outfall.
During a subsequent site visit in May, they also identified countless loose nurdles in stormwater drainage zones located on the nearly 265-acre site, scattered across parking lots and walk-ways. A subsequent series of studies commissioned by the company has revealed numerous factors that will complicate efforts to eliminate discharges of nurdles in stormwater, including previously unmapped stormwater tunnels, drainage vaults riddled with nurdles, and numerous areas of the facility with concentrations of “legacy” beads, allegedly left by previous operators.
Accordingly, even if Styropek follows through on its closure plans and ends the production of plastic pellets at the facility, the Clean Water Act lawsuit will continue.
“NELC attorneys, working in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, will pursue a comprehensive resolution that ensures that all nurdles present at the facility are either removed or properly contained on site,” stated NELC attorney Matt Donohue.
“This will require,” Donohue noted, “the development and implementation of measures to prevent nurdles from migrating through the stormwater system and into neighboring water bodies.”
