Copenhagen, Denmark — Denmark’s Lego said on Monday that it remains committed to its quest to find sustainable materials to reduce carbon emissions, even after an experiment by the world’s largest toymaker to use recycled bottles did not work. Lego said it has “decided not to progress” with making its trademark colorful bricks from recycled plastic bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate, known as PET, and after more than two years of testing “found the material didn’t reduce carbon emissions.”
Lego enthusiastically announced in 2021 that the prototype PET blocks had become the first recycled alternative to pass its “strict” quality, safety and play requirements, following experimentation with several other iterations that proved not durable enough.
The company said scientists and engineers tested more than 250 variations of PET materials, as well as hundreds of other plastic formulations, before nailing down the prototype, which was made with plastic sourced from suppliers in the U.S. that were approved by the Food and Drug Administration and European Food Safety Authority. On average, a one-liter plastic PET bottle made enough raw material for ten 2 x 4 Lego bricks.
Despite the determination that the PET prototype failed to save on carbon emissions, Lego said it remained “fully committed to making Lego bricks from sustainable materials by 2032.”
The privately-held Lego Group, which makes its bricks out of oil-based plastic said it had invested “more than $1.2 billion in sustainability initiatives” as part of efforts to transition to more sustainable materials and reduce its carbon emissions by 37% by 2032, Lego said.
The company said it was “currently testing and developing Lego bricks made from a range of alternative sustainable materials, including other recycled plastics and plastics made from alternative sources such as e-methanol.”
Also known as green methanol, e-methanol is composed of waste carbon dioxide and hydrogen, created by using renewable energy to split water molecules.
Lego said it will continue to use bio-polypropylene, the sustainable and biological variant of polyethylene — a plastic used in everything from consumer and food packaging to tires — for parts in Lego sets such as leaves, trees and other accessories.
“We believe that in the long-term this will encourage increased production of more sustainable raw materials, such as recycled oils, and help support our transition to sustainable materials,” it said.
Lego was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen. The name derived from the two Danish words, leg and godt, which together mean “play well.” The brand name was created unaware that lego in Latin means "I assemble."
So they aren’t giving up on trying to find an eco-friendly production method, they just found one way that doesn’t work out. It is nice to hear that they’re trying though.
Lego have already been carbon neutral for years, but that they haven’t rested on that laurel speaks volumes
Exactly. It’s a shame this didn’t work out but they’re committed to developing and testing new materials.
It’s actually better than resealing this with the eco-friendly label and a potential markup with no actual benefit for the environment.
Even if using recycled PET doesn’t reduce carbon emissions, it’s still reusing material which would otherwise be discarded - material which would otherwise end up in landfills or possibly waterways.
Reusing still seems better than not.
Not reusing it for a purpose that doesn’t make sense doesn’t mean the material won’t be reused ever either ofcourse.
We’re not going to be able to reuse/recycle all discarded PET plastic, no matter what. It’s not like if LEGO were to go forward with this program, they’d be taking discarded PET from some other reuse project.
I wish it was more specific. Was it about the same or was it significantly more? If it was about the same then it would seem better to use it for now just to remove plastic from the waste stream. I mean environmentalism goes beyond simple global warming.
That’s exactly what I was thinking. It’s a win if it reduces plastic waste while keeping production emissions the same.
The material properties of PET are not the best for this application. It isn’t as rigid or as durable as ABS, for example. And when it isn’t virgin material, those properties degrade even further. LEGO has a very high quality standard (their dimensional tolerances on their parts are ridiculously tight for plastic parts) it would require any material it uses meet, so I’m not shocked that PET-based blocks didn’t pass. That satisfying feeling you get when you snap 2 bricks together was probably very high on their list and compared to other materials, recycled PET would feel “smooshier”.
The recycled PET did pass their quality standards.
Lego enthusiastically announced in 2021 that the prototype PET blocks had become the first recycled alternative to pass its “strict” quality, safety and play requirements, following experimentation with several other iterations that proved not durable enough.
One can buy a new LEGO block today and it will fit onto an original LEGO. That’s not ridiculous, that’s magical.
Seems like the bare-minimum requirement for a product like that.
Try LEGO imitators to see the actual minimums.
I worked at a research lab and legos were so precise they were used in prototypes. They would get glued to locations so the parts could be attached and taken back off easily while always being in the exact same place relative to its attachment point with the other piece.
Wish there were more details. All CO2 emissions are not created equal. We need to end our fossil fuel CO2 emissions. If this is not adding fossil fuel CO2 emissions (for instance if no oil based plastics are added in and it is created using renewable energy), it is not really that bad since it is simply repurposing carbon that is already in the system. While that might not be ideal, it would still be much better than creating the whole piece from oil based plastics.
But it could very well be that they don’t have renewable energy in use at the plant and/or the recycling process has to use lots of fossil fuel oils.
That and they can’t just use whatever plastic, they wanted a specific kind to meet quality standards, which means pulling from a much larger pool of recycling, and then all those different recycling centers get to get shipped to a plant.
If your travel path from raw material to finished product looks like a river basin map, you’re spending a lot on fossil fuels.
That and they might be refining the plastic further, potentially creating actual waste products that need secure disposal.
LEGO is doing research in so many areas for that plan. Some succeed (Like “Plants made from plants”), and some (Like the PET blocks) do not.
I have participated in a trial some years ago where I got a set that was obviously hand-packed, but looked like a normal set. I believe it was chosen because it contained a selection of bricks in rather large quantities, i.e. it contained a lot of 1x2 bricks in one color and some others like that. Participants were asked to build the model, answer a questionnaire - including entering a code that came with the package, probably to identify the batch or whether it was a placebo set - and send the set back. In hindsight it was bad that I answered the questionnaire immediately after the build, because I noticed an interesting affect of the model on the next day when I tore it down for return. The model had collected dust overnight. I mean, any LEGO model collects dust, but this collected more in 24 hours than others did in weeks or months. And there was no way to add this information.
I always thought bionicles were cooler than legos.
But… Bionicles are Lego
They’re made by Lego, but they’re not legos.
This is incorrect. There are still some bionicle parts used as regular pieces today.
Like what?
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I’m not trying to be a dick but I’m of the opinion that titles should be clear and concise.
I’ll be sure to pass that along to the editor at CBS News… 🙄
The headline’s context tells you exactly what meaning they’re using. You’re just being pedantic.
That’s true, but if you start reading it with the mixtape meaning in mind (I tried it) you get a little emotional lift, followed by a sad drop as you finish the headline. And that’s with foreknowledge, and I’m not even into Legos like I imagine they are. So let’s be kind. This isn’t Reddit.
you get a little emotional lift, followed by a sad drop as you finish the headline
Oh no.
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I don’t think CBS would use it in the “new mixtape just dropped” sense, but even if you felt it was ambiguous, you should be able to determine which one it was by the part about it not reducing emissions. It wouldn’t make sense for Lego to start selling an eco-friendly product line that wasn’t eco-friendly.
Try reading it with the mixtape meaning in mind and see how it adds to your disappointment by the time you finish the headline. It’s like a setup for a sad joke.
But adults and editors of newspapers don’t talk like that
I don’t either, but I’m old
I’ll stick with reading entire sentences, thanks.
understood scott.
I totally agree.
