Other forms: nurdles
A nurdle is a tiny round pellet used in plastic production. It takes a lot of nurdles to make a plastic water bottle.
It takes about 600 little plastic pellets to make one disposable water bottle, to be exact. That's a lot of nurdles! When you hear people talk about "microplastics" in the ocean, they're often referring to nurdles. These building blocks of plastic production are also what's left over when these products break down, and they're a major source of pollution. We know nurdle was coined in the 1990s, but otherwise its etymology is a mystery.