February 13 , 2022 , marked a eccentric anniversary in the history of sea pollution . On that day in 1997 , a jumbo wave swept4.8 million LEGO piecesinto Ethel Waters 20 land mile off the seashore of Cornwall in the UK . A quarter of a one C after , the midget plastic toys are still washing up on England ’s southwest shore .
According toSmithsonian , the Great LEGO Spill is considered the worst - ever toy - related environmental catastrophe . It occurred when a cargo ship namedTokio Expresswas transporting goods from Rotterdam in the Netherlands to New York . A 28 - human foot undulation toppled 62 shipping container off the vessel , dumping item like superglue and disposable lighters into the sea . One box heldLEGO sets , that — in a strange twist — were largely nautical - theme . That ’s the injured party that has gotten the most attention in the 25 years since the incident .
beachcomber continue to observe miniature fin , harpoon , andoctopusesin the sand to this day . Though the LEGO retrieval have beenconcentrated in Cornwall , American oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer estimated that the part could have tramp 62,000 international nautical mile across the world ’s oceans . Roughly 3.2 million of the drop off Lego are short enough to float , which means the other 1.6 million have likely ended up on the seabed . They are designate to stay put there for a while ; according to a2020 work , it will take 1300 years for the LEGOs miss at sea to fully break down .
The 1997 accident is n’t the first disaster of its sort . After years ofGarfield phones washing ashore in France , investigator traced their source to a merchant marine container that fall off a load ship in the eighties . Both incidents shew how the plastic we ditch in the sea is n’t as easy to ignore as we may desire .
[ h / tSmithsonian ]
