NOIA, Spain (AP) Countless tiny plastic pellets are washing up on the shores of northern Spain and local authorities declared an environmental emergency on Tuesday after a shipping container fell off a transport vessel last month.

The regional governments of Galicia, which has borne the brunt of the pollution, and neighboring Asturias asked Spains national government to help.

On Monday, Spanish state prosecutors opened an investigation.

Prosecutors fear that the pellets could have toxic properties and said there are indications that they had also been found on French shores.

These little balls of plastic are an environmental problem because fish confuse them with fish eggs and eat them and they enter the food chain and end up on our dinner tables, Cristobal Lpez, spokesperson for the Spanish environmental group Ecologistas en Accin, told The Associated Press from a beach in Galicia.