On a gloomy drizzly day in late June, Hayley Hardstaff, a marine biologist from Cornwall, England, took her routine walk along Portwrinkle Beach. What began as an ordinary stroll turned extraordinary when she stumbled upon a black, plastic dragon with a missing upper jaw. To her surprise, it was a piece of Lego, not just any piece, but a remnant of one of history's most curious maritime mishaps.
In 1997, an accident involving a cargo ship and a rogue wave led to one of the most bizarre environmental disasters in history - the Great Lego Spill. Nearly five million Lego pieces, including 33,427 black dragons, were lost at sea when the Tokio Express, a cargo ship en route from Rotterdam to New York, nearly capsized off the coast of England. The incident resulted in the loss of all 62 of its shipping containers, causing one of the largest toy-related environmental disasters.
Twenty-seven years later, people are still finding these tiny plastic artefacts on beaches across Europe.
Tracey Williams, who started the "Lego Lost at Sea" Facebook page, has been documenting these Lego finds for years. The spill included nautically themed pieces like dragons, octopuses, seaweed, scuba tanks and life rafts. Some pieces, like black dragons and green octopuses, have become prized finds for beachcombers.
Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, known for tracking the 1992 Friendly Floatees Spill, pointed out that ocean currents can carry debris to far-off places, making the extent of such pollution hard to track. While some pieces have been found in the Netherlands, France and Belgium, many remain lost, possibly sunk to the ocean floor.
Mr Ebbesmeyer's curiosity about the Cornwall spill led him to investigate further. He contacted Lego and received an inventory of the container's contents, along with samples of the pieces. Testing them in his bathtub revealed that half of the pieces floated, which could explain why many remain missing.
In the years since, pieces have sporadically appeared, often found by fishermen trawling the ocean floor. One of the rarest finds, a Lego shark, was recently caught 20 miles off the Cornish coast, marking the first sighting of this specific piece in 27 years. This leaves 51,799 more of these sharks still unaccounted for, according to the "Lego Lost at Sea" account.
Professor Andrew Turner considers the incident an interesting case study due to public awareness. Unlike most container spills, the Great Lego Spill was made public, and it represents just a small part of the vast plastic pollution in the ocean.
Mr Turner says it is just the "tip of the iceberg" when it comes to plastic pollution in the ocean. He pointed out the vast amounts of plastic that remain on the ocean floor, much of which is unaccounted for and whose potential impact is still largely unknown.
