‘Great Lego Spill': Pieces still washing onto shore 27 years after cargo ship capsizes

Clarence Ford speaks to Barbara Friedman about trending online topics. 

(Skip to 5:22 on the audio player below for this story.)

In 1997, an accident involving a cargo ship and a rogue wave led to one of the most bizarre environmental disasters in history, dubbed 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. 

About five million Lego pieces were lost at sea.

The incident resulted in the loss of all 62 of its shipping containers, causing one of the largest toy-related environmental disasters in history.

Now, 27 years later, toy pieces still wash up on the beach where the boat capsized.

One woman, Tracey Williams, started the 'Lego Lost at Sea' Facebook page to document these Lego finds for years and wrote a book about it; 'Adrift: The Curious Tale of the Lego Lost at Sea'.

The spill included nautically themed pieces like octopuses, seaweed, scuba tanks and life rafts. 

Some pieces, like black dragons and green octopuses, have become prized finds for beachcombers while others are assumed to have sunk below the ocean floor.

Environmentalists and oceanographers say the 'Great Lego Spill' represents just a small part of the vast plastic pollution in the ocean.

The New York Times also wrote a piece commemorating the spill. 

"It's so fascinating... you'll get completely swept up in the joy of finding them. It's like finding fossils. There's a whole world under the sea. It's like 'The Lost City of Atlantis' but it's 'The Lost City of the Lego'."

- Barbara Friedman

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