Home Australia Mystery balls are finally identified after washing up on Sydney’s Northern Beaches and sparking panic

Mystery balls are finally identified after washing up on Sydney’s Northern Beaches and sparking panic

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The small gray balls (in the photo) that caused panic when they were washed on the Sydney beaches two weeks ago have been identified by scientists

The small gray balls that caused panic when they were washed on the Sydney beaches two weeks ago have been identified by scientists.

It turns out that they were mostly composed of soap and cosmetics.

Nine beaches in the District of the beaches of northern Sydney, including Manly, Dee Why and North Narrabeen, closed on January 14 after the marble size balls appeared on the coast.

Jon Beves, professor of Chemistry at the University of Nueva Gales del Sur, said that small balls were mainly composed of things found in everyday household items.

“We analyze these and discover that they are mostly saturated fatty acids and calcium, so the fatty acids that I would find in cleaning products or cosmetics, soaps,” he told the alphabet.

Small traces of pharmaceutical products and animal fecal biomarkers were also found in the balls.

The discovery on the beaches of the North occurred after seven iconic beaches, including Bondi, Coogee and Maroubra, in the east of the city they closed last October when dozens of black balls were washed.

The incident caused a massive cleaning of the Randwick Board, which initially thought that the balls were toxic “tar balls” created by an oil or boat leakage.

The small gray balls (in the photo) that caused panic when they were washed on the Sydney beaches two weeks ago have been identified by scientists

But scientists then revealed that their origins were much more unpleasant.

UNSW researchers said the balls were actually a mixture of raw wastewater, cooking fat, soap scum and drugs.

This suggested that the balls were pieces of a ‘fatberg’ that are generally found in the sewers of the city.

The questions about the origin of the rubble remained: the researchers were not sure if they came from local sewerage systems, a boat or storm waters.

However, they were sure that all balls came from the same place, since they were similar in composition.

A small number of balls was also washed in Silver Beach in the south of the city in December.

However, Professor Beves said that the balls found in Coogee were different from those found on the north side of the city.

“Those we found in Coogee were … what seems to cook oil and the similar type of fatty acids … but there were also all the other things in them,” he said.

‘I guess what seemed Diesel, that’s why they were black. These on the north coast are a much simpler composition than we find (in Coogee).

More to come …

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