18 Jun 2024

Decades-old Lego keeps washing up on the UK coastline

From Nights, 10:18 pm on 18 June 2024

Tracey Williams has spent years of her life looking for needles in haystacks.

Tracey lives on the beach in Cornwall, where nearly three decades ago, a storm led to a cargo ship spilling masses of LEGO parts into the sea.

These LEGO parts are washing up on beaches around England.

Tracey has made it her mission to collect and catalogue as many of these pieces of plastic as possible, and to draw attention to the wider issue of plastic pollution.

She joins Emile Donovan.

A composite image. On the left, a photo of a book cover. The book is entitled "ADRIFT". It has a white cover strewn with pictures of white plastic LEGO pieces along with kelp. On the right, a close up photo of some of the LEGO pieces, such as a liferaft, an octopus, and dragons.

Tracey Williams documents her and others' discoveries of LEGO pieces washed up on beaches from a 1997 cargo ship spill on her social media pages Lego Lost At Sea. Photo: Supplied