Impacts of spilled debris from the X-Press Pearl disaster in Sri Lanka on marine plankton.

Accidents of ships carrying diverse hazardous chemicals and plastics can lead to complex spills of pollutants in marine ecosystems. One such incident was the catastrophic fire on the container ship X-Press Pearl which sank off the Sri Lankan coast in 2021. Explosions and fire resulted in plastic pellets and burnt clumps of melted plastic and combustion residues washing ashore.