Sorting and sorting and sorting

There is a long process to gathering the Legos we need for this project. What do we do when we get Lego donations? The process, Part 1:

1. We remove all the minifigures (no fighting kids!)

2. We remove all the specialty pieces (basically anything with an unusual shape that cannot be used for free plan and creative modeling). Most sets have these specialty pieces so approximately 60% of the pieces are discarded. We send the pieces to Lego Replay for recycling.

3. Once we have all the Legos sorted into free play pieces, then we will move on to Part 2!

In this photo you can see that only a small selection of free play pieces are kept (in the round basket) and the rest are discarded.