LEGO LOST AT SEA In 1997 , a container ship , the Tokio Express , was hit by an enormous wave off the coast of Cornwall , England , knocking 62 shipping containers into the sea . One of those containers contained almost 4.8 million pieces of Lego , including 4,200 black octopuses , 26,600 yellow life-preservers , 353,264 white , red and yellow flowers , 28,700 yellow life-rafts , and 33,941 dragons . Tracey Williams set up the Lego Lost at Sea social media project because she was interested to know ‘ who was finding it , which pieces were turning up and how far it had travelled .’ She says that there is still a lot of Lego washing ashore , but that the kinds of pieces she finds has changed over time . This is because a lot of the pieces that floated to the surface have already washed ashore , and the pieces that sank to the bottom of the ocean are now being released by high tides and stormy weather . An oceanographer named Curtis Ebbesmeyer says it is possible that , by now , some of the Lego from that spill has travelled all over the world . As well as Lego , Tracey has described some of the rubbish that she regularly finds on the beaches around her , most of it is modern but some of it is much older . She has found plastic toys from cereal boxes dating back to the 1950s and plastic curtain hooks which may have been floating around since the 1940s .
TAKING IT FURTHER Why not take part in a # 2minutebeachclean or get involved in the Swedish activity of plogging – a combination of jogging and litter picking !
Projects such as punk archaeology and Lego Lost at Sea are really interesting ways for us to see how the things we throw away can last for a very long time , ending up in places that we never expected .
Sure , but all of this plastic pollution is pretty depressing , isn ’ t it ? Where is the hope ?
I ’ m glad you asked .
We are now beginning to change how we use plastics . Brilliant new alternatives are being developed that are easier to recycle and hopefully kinder to the environment . These can be made from plants , mushroom roots and seaweed . We all have a part to play in preventing plastic pollution and we can make sure that we reuse and recycle the things we have instead of throwing them away . Lego is a great example of a product that cannot be recycled , but it can be reused . Many people donate their old Lego to new owners . You might already have some that once belonged to someone else .
What else can we do to help ?
Think about the things that you use every day that are made from plastic . Maybe you drink from plastic water bottles , or have a plastic toothbrush ? You can replace them with more sustainable alternatives . You can recycle the things that you cannot reuse to prevent them from finding their way into the ocean or landfill sites . You could also take part in organised street , river and beach clean-ups . You never know , you might even discover some Lego that fell into the sea more than two decades ago .
FUN FACT TRUMPET According to a 2017 study by the University of Georgia , around 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic has been produced since the 1950s , 6.3 billion tonnes of which has already become waste . Of that waste total only about 9 per cent has been recycled . The rest of it has been burned or dumped .
Words : Frances Durkin . Illustration : Ed J . Brown
19