In the late 1980s, the baseball card market experienced a massive boom that led to overproduction by card manufacturers like Fleer and Topps. The increased supply far exceeded demand, which caused a glut in the market and the overall value of cards to plummet. With warehouses overflowing with unsold inventory, card companies were left with the difficult problem of what to do with millions of unwanted cards. Rather than taking a financial loss by destroying the cards, some decided to get creative in disposing of them in a way that wouldn’t cost money. That’s when the idea arose to simply dump the excess baseball cards into the ocean.
It was a drastic and controversial solution, but card companies believed the cards would biodegrade harmlessly in the sea without creating landfill waste. In 1989, Fleer is estimated to have dumped several million cards off the coast of Delaware from a private garbage scow. The exact number is unknown, as the disposal was done secretly under cover of night. Word eventually got out about the ocean dumping after an environmental group discovered card packs and wrappers washing ashore. Fleer acknowledged what they had done, claiming it was more environmentally friendly than other disposal methods. Many collectors were outraged at the callous destruction of collectibles.
The incident highlighted the downside of overproduction that had glutted the sports card market. Fleer and Topps were pumping out so many sets and variants that the collectible aspect was diminished. Kids who had once cherished their cards as a link to their favorite players now saw them as worthless commodities. With no resale value, there was no incentive to hold onto cards rather than throwing them out. The dumping also set a precedent that cards were disposable rather than something to be preserved. While Fleer maintained the cards would disintegrate, some feared plastic wrappers and ink from the cards could pollute waterways for years.
It’s impossible to know exactly how many cards ended up in the ocean as a result of the 1989 dumping, but most estimates range from 5-10 million. Fleer produced cards for several sports in addition to just baseball that year. Wind and tides likely carried some of the floating cards far from the dumping site. Anecdotal reports from fishermen suggest cards and wrappers continued washing up as far away as North Carolina in following years. The littering of the ocean became an infamous black eye on the sports card industry during its speculative boom and subsequent bust.
In the decades since, some have attempted to piece together what became of the dumped baseball cards. Occasional finds still turn up today, a testament to how long plastic can persist in the environment. A few pristine vintage cards in mint condition have been plucked from beaches, raising questions of how they avoided degradation for so long underwater. Some collectors organize annual beach sweeps, searching for any salvageable remnants of the ocean dumpings as a way to preserve a small part of card history. Divers have also explored areas where the dumping reportedly took place, finding a few sun-bleached cards clinging to the ocean floor.
The environmental impact of the baseball card dumping remains unclear. As plastic waste in the oceans has grown into a global crisis, the incident serves as an early example of treating collectibles as disposable trash. While the volume of cards was small compared to today’s plastic pollution levels, it offered a cautionary tale. Simply dumping the problem did not make it disappear, as cards and wrappers continued circulating among ocean currents for years. The rash decision by card companies to so hastily dispose of millions of collectibles also helped sour the sports memorabilia boom and reset consumer expectations about the value of cards. Nearly three decades later, the mystery of what became of those baseball cards cast into the sea lingers on.
For collectors and environmentalists alike, the 1989 baseball card dumping was an indelible black mark. It showed the downside of an unchecked speculative frenzy in sports memorabilia, as well as the harms of treating our oceans as a dumping ground. While most of the cards were doubtless degraded or dispersed, occasional new finds are unearthed even today. They serve as a tangible reminder of the rash decision to discard such a sizable volume of collectibles directly into the environment. As plastic pollution worsens globally, the incident stands as an early case study in the longevity of trash dumped at sea. Nearly thirty years later, we’re still seeing remnants of what was washed away and trying to understand the long term impacts on wildlife and habitats.
