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Thousands of pieces of Lego have washed up on a British beach more than 20 years after five million bricks spilled from a cargo ship.

The Tokio Express was en route from Rotterdam in the Netherlands to New York when it was struck by a huge wave in February 1997.

Sixty two containers were lost overboard, including one that contained 4,756,940 pieces of plastic Lego, many of which were light enough to float.

Now, more than two decades later, they are still washing up on beaches in Cornwall.

Beach cleaner Tracey Williams said she has just discovered another batch.

Tracey, from Newquay, Cornwall, started the Lego Lost at Sea page in 2014, and regularly scours Britain's beaches in the hunt for plastic.

She said: "Yes we found Lego, but here's what else we found during eight hours of picking up plastic from one Cornish cove, all washed up with seaweed from the seabed last week."

(Image: Tracey Williams / SWNS.com)

(Image: Lego Lost At Sea / SWNS)

She said she found 1097 bottles, 158 bits of broken net float, 74 goggles, snorkelling masks and glasses, and 32 shoes.

"And we barely scratched the surface," she added.

"We also found clothes, bits of carpet, fishermen's gloves, toys, a windsock, a boomerang, a vinyl seat cover, curtain hooks.

(Image: Tracey Williams / SWNS.com)

"(There were) hundreds of strips of car tyre rubber, rope, net, etc - all items that do not float.

"The plastic that floats is just the tip of the iceberg."

The Lego bricks and toys from the Tokio Express, which many have become collector's items, will take hundreds of years to biodegrade and it is feared they will continue to pollute seas, and poison fish, seabirds and mammals.