In 1997, a wave hit a cargo ship off the coast of Cornwall, England. This sent a container holding nearly 5 million LEGO® pieces tumbling overboard. The plastic pieces continue to wash up on beaches from England to the Netherlands.
Most LEGO pieces are made of a dense, durable plastic called ABS. Like all plastics, this material doesn’t biodegrade, or break down naturally. It can last in the ocean for 100 to 1,300 years. “We suspect there are still millions of pieces out there,” says Tracey Williams, a writer who’s been monitoring the spill for decades. She is the author of Adrift: The Curious Tale of the Lego Lost at Sea, which chronicles the impact of the “Great LEGO Spill.”