Plastic, chemicals and a devastating hit for the locals

The X-Press Pearl is lying half sunken off the coast of Sri Lanka. Images of the ship burning for days have gone around the world but now the vessel has basically sunk, the hull resting on the shallow ocean bed.

The unlucky ship had towers of containers stacked upon each other, many containing chemicals highly dangerous to the environment.

Tons of tiny plastic pellets have already washed up on the local beach nearby. And then there's the tons of engine fuel sealed in the sunken hull.

Aside from the environmental threats, there are also devastating consequences for the local communities, fishermen who over night lost their livelihoods and will likely suffer for years to come.

Billions of plastic pellets

"There were some 46 different chemicals on that ship," explains Hemantha Withanage, a Sri Lankan environmental activist and founder of the Centre for Environmental Justice in the capital Colombo. "But what's been most visible so far are the tons of plastic pellets," he tells the BBC.

Plastic pellets, also called nurdles, are tiny round pieces of plastic, used to make nearly all plastic goods.

If they end up in the ocean like now off Sri Lanka, it's usually millions or even billions of them. They will wash up on beaches or end up in the guts of fish and other ocean animals.

Since late May, such pellets from the X-Press Pearl cargo have ended up on the Negombo beaches while fish have already been washed up with bloated bellies and pellets stuck in their gills.

The plastic can take between 500 to 1000 years to decompose and is likely to be carried by ocean currents to shores all around Sri Lanka and even to beaches hundreds of kilometres away from the shipwreck.

Yet while the plastic might be the most visible impact so far, it's not the most dangerous one.

"If these nurdles are within fish we eat, they're usually in the fish's digestive tract," Britta Denise Hardesty of Australia's CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere told the BBC. "But we don't eat the the entire fish unless it's maybe anchovies or sardines."

"Pellets are often sensationalised but there is no strong evidence that humans are shown to have detrimental impact from eating fish that may haven eaten plastics."

While this doesn't mean the pellets are not harmful to the marine life itself, experts say it's not the most dangerous cargo of the ship.

Chemical pollution

"More hazardous than the plastic are the chemicals," warns Mr Withange.

He says there already have been fish, turtles and dolphins washed up dead on the beaches. Some of those had turned a greenish colour suggesting contamination with metals and chemicals.

Among the most dangerous elements on board the ship are nitric acid, sodium dioxide, copper and lead, he explains.

Highly poisonous, once in the water they will make their way into the food chain: small fish might die quickly but bigger ones won't. Instead, feeding on smaller fish, the toxins will slowly build up in their bodies over time.

"So if in a few years you catch a tuna, it will still be contaminated - this bioaccumulation will be a serious problem."

This means fish from the area will be dangerous for humans - not just for now, but for years to come.

"People need to be educated on this," Mr Withange urges. "It's a completely toxic ship now. Any litter coming to shore is very poisonous and people should not even touch it."

The problem is by no means limited to the immediate area around the shipwreck on Sri Lanka's western coast.

"Wastes, toxins or plastics don't follow geographic boundaries," Britta Denise Hardesty of Australia's CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere told the BBC.

"They will be carried by wind, waves, currents and those things change seasonally."

The clean-up job

It's expected that Sri Lanka will be dealing with the environmental damage from the X-Press Pearl for decades.

The country is not well prepared though for a difficult job like this. While there have been shipwrecks before, there's never been one with such poisonous cargo.

Activists urge that international experts will be crucial.

The shipping company that owns the X-Press Pearl has already commissioned an international firm to respond to the crisis and says its specialists are on the ground in Sri Lanka.

But Mr Withange doubts whether a profit-driven firm will really do its utmost to help the situation. The shipwreck has become a high-profile insurance case where the concern for marine wildlife might well fall behind that for money.

His biggest hope is that the disaster will at least be a valuable lesson to prevent a repeat or at least be better prepared the next time.

The Centre for Environmental Justice has sued both the Sri Lankan government and the shipping company over the situation, but the group acknowledges that the best outcome might just be that they're raising awareness.

The impact on the locals

For the fishermen of Negombo, the long-term environmental impact is only of secondary concern. Firstly, the disaster means that many of them have lost their income and livelihood practically over night.

Fishing has already been banned in the affected area but many there depend daily on the money they would normally make from their catch.

"We are small time fishermen and we go to sea daily. We can only earn something if we go to sea - otherwise our entire family will starve," 3- year old Denish Rodrigo told BBC.

"The fish are bread in the coral reefs in the area and authorities are saying that all those breading grounds are destroyed due to the dangerous chemicals. There is no any other option than jump into the sea and die," says Tiuline Fernando, who's been a fisherman for the past 35 years.

While the government is expecting compensation and insurance money from the Singapore-based owners of the ship, the locals aren't too optimistic that much of that money will be used to help them.

Yet the fishermen's association told the BBC that they would desperately need help, both the fishermen and the wider community.

"It's not only us," explains Densil Fernando, the president of the group and fisherman himself. "There are other related industries that are also impacted by this. We buy nets and engines and boats, we need oil, there are people who pull the boats. There are thousands of other related jobs connected to this fishing industry."