Archaeology of a Cargo Spill: The Lingering Legacy of Lego

In 1997, 62 shipping containers were lost from the cargo ship, Tokio Express, 20 miles off Land’s End, Cornwall (England). One held nearly five million pieces of Lego, much of it sea-themed, including octopuses and life rafts, as well as over 33,000 dragons. While much of the Lego was dispersed widely by ocean currents, millions of bricks sank to the seabed. Even today, fishermen find Lego in their trawls from the deep. It is thought, however, that much of the Lego could still be buried in sand in the coastal zone. For example, during a storm in March 2020, beachcombers found hundreds of pieces of Lego from the spill after a section of dune collapsed at Perran Sands. Also revealed were toy soldiers, cereal packet figurines and old plastic bottles dating back to the 1950s. Many were surprisingly well preserved, providing a valuable insight into how long plastic persists in the coastal zone. When scientists recently analysed classic Lego bricks (not derived from the spill but picked up during beach cleans), they found that the plastic was so tough it could survive in the coastal environment for anywhere between one hundred and 1,300 years. In this photo essay we describe and illustrate this project and its findings, as an archaeology of the contemporary world.