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Every type of plastic used by LEGO (2022)
- JKCalhoun 3y agoI'm no longer in my "Lego phase" but still found the article reading like a taxonomy of plastics in general. Like if you were to create a (okay, not-so) Periodic Table of Plastics, you might as well populate it with Lego parts because most of us are familiar with the bricks and their characteristics. (And, crazy, who knew Lego used Bakelite at one time?)
- em-bee 3y agowhich lego phase? the kids want toys and build whatever comes to mind phase or the adults get childhood memories phase or the adults get elaborate expensive models with a few thousands of bricks that are to complex for kids phase
- samastur 3y agoyes
- freitzkriesler2 3y agoI never understood the point of making sterile models. Legos, trains, or otherwise. I want to sit there and play with them. Create elaborate worlds. Have crazy car crashes, recreate die hard, and have plane crashes and other nutty things. The sad part is I'm in my 30s.
- xattt 3y agoNo one should gatekeep how you enjoy recreational time.
- em-bee 3y agofortunately with each generation this becomes less and less of a problem
- derefr 3y agoI get the impression that when people are buying a Lego model of e.g. the Millennium Falcon, they aren't so much interested in building the model. They just want a model of the Millennium Falcon, to display on their shelf; and the one that best optimizes appearance + affordability for them, just happens to be one that comes as a kit of small modular parts that they must assemble. It's less "a building-toy set that happens to build into a model" and more "a model that happened to be released by a building-toy company." The making part of these sets is secondary.
- em-bee 3y agodepends, i find the building part the most fun. once a model is built, it's less interesting. which is partly frustrating. i want to do more than just build a model and put it on a shelf.
- noufalibrahim 3y agoThe single model sets are more 3d jigsaw puzzle than building blocks. Fun to make and all but limited "replay value". It's a different kind of satisfaction.
- nuancebydefault 3y agoThis must be true since models with limited replay value other than gazing at its built state and maybe mesmerizing the fun of making it (cfr the ikea effect) seem to do well. It puzzles me.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hutzlibu 3y ago"The sad part is I'm in my 30s. " The sad part is, many who are in their 30s, forgot how to play and have fun.
- dehrmann 3y agoI get the sentiment, but at some point, the novelty wears off. Building a new set just isn't exciting because the process is almost exactly the same as building the last set.
- hutzlibu 3y agoHuh? But you can recombine them in infinite ways..
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- em-bee 3y agonot everyone has the creativity for that. i am struggling too. the best i manage is to take existing models and fix flaws in them. the struggle is to find the right kind of abstraction. there are some people who create really awesome looking scenes. and every time i look at one my fingers itch. but designing something like that takes time and patience. i think i'll revisit that topic when i retired and less mobile.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoThat's me right here. Sandbox entertainment, with no goal or point of reference, gives me anxiety attacks. A slightly directed sandbox is entertaining for a few hours, after which the thought that it's all arbitrary hits me and things stop being fun. Something in my mind broke, but I don't know when and why.
- hutzlibu 3y agoYou are looking for deeper meaning. That's probably not to be found in Lego, unless you use it to teach kids about engeneering/robotics (a shame they stopped the mindstorms). And coincidently, that is how I enjoy Lego nowdays. Building a big castle for myself would also feel like a waste of time, because I see so many problems in this world (my personal as well as the bigger one) that I can relate to not having fun with simple things that used to be fun, because I think I could do something more useful. (and then I don't play, but also don't do something useful - and that is then a waste of time)
- ahoka 3y agoThis is literally the plot of the LEGO movie.
- TacticalCoder 3y ago> The sad part is I'm in my 30s. I'm 50 but I've got an eight-years old daughter. So this week-end we're building the Lego Ducati Panigale bike (bought new) and we also ordered two used Lego "elves" sets. My daughter is really into Lego. And it's a blast from the past to see her play with my very own original space sets from the seventies (I think they're from the seventies). So yeah: having a kid (or niece/nephew) is the perfect excuse to play Lego again!
- xkcd-sucks 3y agoHave a kid, then "fucking around" becomes "being a good parent" or at least "practicing how to engage with the child's interests"
- derefr 3y agoYou're forgetting the adults take out their stash of blocks from the expensive models to help their own kids build whatever comes to mind phase :)
- em-bee 3y agothere is also the: don't touch these, play with your own bricks phase
- chasd00 3y agoAnd, as a parent, after stepping on a brick for the 20th time: never again will I ever buy any more and am gathering them all to donate right now phase.
- aequitas 3y agoTaken to the extreme as: glueing the pieces together with kragle to build an entire Lego city/world only for your son to free the Lego people from their boring repetitive prison and connect with his father on a whole new level.l when they start building a world and stories together.
- simondotau 3y agoSounds like a great plot idea for a movie about Lego.
- hef19898 3y agoThere isbalso the take all my old, half assembled, sets from the 80s and have fun phase.
- em-bee 3y agoi did that with my kids, although it was all completely disassembled. we had stored our stuff at my parents place, and when my dad sent the boxes (each 10kg) he said he could not find one box. so he bought another from ebay to make up the difference. then he found the lost box. my kids got more lego than i ever had. and they still wanted new stuff...
- nuancebydefault 3y agoI guess PVC is not in the list because it can contain residues of its poisonous mono molecule.
- andersrs 3y agoYet we use it in plumbing. Madness.
- karol 3y agoDo they also use microplastics?
- greggsy 3y agoMost plastics with degrade to microplastic size, Lego included.
- karol 3y agoBingo
- RedShift1 3y agoYou mean as a source material to create the pellets that ultimately go into the molding machines? Well no, microplastics can't be recycled because they've broken down too much to make usable plastic.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kibwen 3y ago"Microplastic" describes a small pellet of plastic less than 5 mm in length. It doesn't refer to any specific type of chemical used to create plastic. If the question is whether or not lego bricks generate microplastics, the answer is no, not really. Microplastics are mostly a problem when they wind up in the water supply, either from plastic fibers in clothes that are being washed, or plastic microbeads in shampoo that gets rinsed down the drain, or in plastic trash that has wound up in a river or ocean and is deteriorating into smaller particles.
- Waterluvian 3y agoI never really thought about it much. But I guess this is why my baseplates from childhood want to shatter when bent and my kids just want to bend and go white? Or is that really just a function of time and not material?
- derefr 3y agoThat's a function of time. "Plasticizers", the chemicals that make plastics varying degrees of bendable†, sweat out of the plastic over time, turning the plastic stiff/brittle [which is really what plastics are like by default with no plasticizer in them] and the plastic's surface layer either oily or tacky, depending on the particular plastic. (The surface gets oily for "hard plastics", and tacky for "soft-touch" plastics. If you've ever touched a 40-year-old Apple keyboard cable, you know what soft-touch plastic with the plasticizer sweated out feels like.) † Which ironically makes "plasticizers" actually elasticizers. Plastics are polymers named for how they undergo plastic deformation — "bending and going white", as you say — at pretty low stress levels. "Plasticizers" are ironically chemicals that make plastics into materials that undergo elastic deformation — flopping around without damage — instead.
- feedsmgmt 3y agoAren't some of those plasticizers and dyes toxic?
- Hackbraten 3y agoThey sure are. The German word for elasticizer – Weichmacher (literally “soft-maker”) – has acquired a negative connotation over the years. Colloquially, it’s now kind of synonymous to toxic stuff in plastics.
- amelius 3y agoWhat about food safety? Can I safely put a sandwich in my self-made LEGO lunchbox and then eat it?
- kuschku 3y agoIf you use ABS or MABS bricks, yes. If you use older PP bricks, I'd recommend against it.
- OJFord 3y agoWhy? Loads of food containers are made of PP. Is it the age rather than the material that puts you off? I assume not porousness, since by far the largest pores regardless of material will be the brick joints.
- kuschku 3y agoBPA-containing materials are not food-grade in EU.
- OJFord 3y agoPP is BPA-free and widely used in the EU.
- bseidensticker 3y agoPP does not contain BPA. You might be thinking of PC.
- kuschku 3y agoAh sorry, you're indeed right. Some PET materials would also contain BPA. Either way, I'd be careful.
- RedShift1 3y agoWhy wouldn't you? I'm pretty sure lots of kids put lego (or more likely duplo) pieces in their mouth all the time. Probably about the same risk as drinking from a plastic bottle.
- toddmorey 3y ago“But as of now, no final replacement has been announced, and the vast majority of LEGO parts remain fossil-fuel-based” I think their initial goal was sustainable Legos by 2030. I applaud their decision but it seems it’s been hard to materialize. Bummer but I hope they keep pushing.
- beloch 3y agoUsing fossil fuels to grow food, move things and people around, etc. all puts CO2 and other pollutants directly into the atmosphere. Using it to make lego, on the other hand, is comparatively benign. If they can come up with a replacement plastic that has a lower environmental impact, that'd be great. However, they shouldn't use a less environmentally friendly alternative just because it's not based on fossil fuels. That would just be greenwashing.
- metadat 3y ago> That would just be greenwashing. Greenwashing, also called "green sheen", is a form of advertising or marketing spin in which green PR and green marketing are deceptively used to persuade the public that an organization's products, aims and policies are environmentally friendly. Green-manufactured LEGO doesn't qualify.. Edit: @beloch: got it, thanks for educating me.
- beloch 3y agoIt fits the definition if the new manufacturing process is less environmentally friendly.
- blamazon 3y agoJust to state one aspect of this, since I don't think you said it explicitly. Alternative plastics currently are generally not as efficient to produce as mainline plastics, IE they consume more energy. If that energy consumption is connected to fossil fuels, it could be a step backwards to implement such a process at Lego scale. There's also another aspect of, if the demand of global oil used for plastics goes down, it could be more appealing to burn oil for energy, if the price goes down accordingly. There's some argument to be made that while we spin down the oil industry we should be making more fossil fuel based plastics, to be entombed in the earth somewhat like nuclear waste. I say all this unhappily as someone who really wants our species to make forward progress on climate and resource policy.
- deviantbit 3y agoWhere is the stainless steel? I know I've stepped on a few that were stainless steel (sarcasm).
- hasmanean 3y agoWhere are the concrete ones? I want to build a Lego house I can live in. (Non sarcasm)
- Mountain_Skies 3y agoICF and cinder blocks are somewhat close to Legos for houses.
- coryrc 3y agoI know you're just joking, but concrete is weak in tension and it doesn't bend much before breaking, so they cannot be made like Lego bricks because they will not connect securely. The closest you can get IMO is the Roman Colosseum. It's mostly made of large blocks with a series of notches in them. Metal bars are placed in the notches so the blocks can move slightly in relation to each other, but not so much as to fall apart.
- cuttysnark 3y agoThere's a recycling plant not far from where I take the train. In their yard, they have large (5' x 3') concrete blocks that are "stackable" in that they have voids in their bottoms that fit their counterpart's ridges on the tops—just like a lego. They stack these 4 or 5 high and create huge U-shaped corrals for various types of metals. My town does something similar to store rock stalk for the winter—these blocks are stacked and a pre-fab roof is placed directly on top. To my knowledge, there is no mortar or rebar of any kind, and it can be undone and reworked into another configuration with just a forklift. These are meant to be temporary, but have been there for >8 and >5 years respectively. Somewhat related: The famed "Jersey Divider" is cast in a similar way, albeit without any consideration for vertical stacking.
- Xenoamorphous 3y agoIs cellolose acetate the material used for (sun)glasses? Didn’t know it had a tendency to warp.
- hammock 3y agoYes. Cellulose acetate warps or breaks down in two main ways: it can warp from plasticizer migration, and it can “weep” or liquify as it ages. Weeping has been called “vinegar syndrome” because of the smell involved, which of course is acetic acid.
- kjkjadksj 3y agoBest to store the ray bans in a jar of vinegar then?
- hammock 3y agoStoring in vinegar would catalyze and accelerate the decomposition of the acetate. And once it starts, it can’t be stopped. To prevent decomposition, use breathable enclosures and store in a low temperature and low relative humidity. Proper storage and handling practices, particularly using gloves and storing in low light environments, can prevent vinegar syndrome almost entirely. These are learnings gleaned from those involved in the historical preservation of acetate photographic films.
- ofrzeta 3y agoLego itself has almost the same page https://www.lego.com/en-us/sustainability/product-safety/materials https://www.lego.com/en-us/sustainability/product-safety/mat...
- OJFord 3y agoNice they have that. Just to point out though, OP does add historical materials (vs. Lego's seems to be just current uses) as well as some details like who supplies it.
- caesil 3y agoDid they just basically copy that Bricknerd post? The composition of some of those graphics (particularly TP) looks suspiciously similar.
- simondotau 3y agoMore likely it's the other way around. The Bricknerd post was first published in May 2022, whereas the graphic art asset for TP plastic has existed on Lego.com since at least November 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20211107184633/https://www.lego.com/cdn/cs/sustainability/assets/blt07b03a311f0b766d/Material_illustration_TP.png https://web.archive.org/web/20211107184633/https://www.lego....
- caesil 3y agoGood catch.
- stefantalpalaru 3y ago[dead]
- ryukoposting 3y agoI was always a Lego kid (and I dabble as an adult- those Mindstorms robotics sets are a hoot) so this was a fun read. I knew ABS was the main material they used, and the bendy Bionicle parts must have been made of something else, but I had no idea that the whole story was this complex. It's remarkable that they can manage such an enormous catalog of parts, while also handling all the fiddly variations in manufacturing processes for each material. Good stuff.
- kazinator 3y ago> Most people know that most LEGO bricks are made of ABS LOL? No, most people don't know that? Shall we head to the streets and make a video where we interview random people about what plastic is used in Lego bricks? If we do that in the hallways of a chemistry building at a major university campus, we might hit above 50%, particularly if we go at a time when it's not crawling with undergrads.
- KolmogorovComp 3y agoMost people who consult bricknerd.com I guess (which is an awesome name).
- kazinator 3y agoOkay, sure. Most people with an internet-connected phone in their hand know everything, if you just give them a minute.
- kazinator 3y agoTo clarify, what I understand by "most people know" is that they could answer the question point blank, not that "most people have an internet-connected mobile device which could inform them in a few seconds".
- nkurz 3y agoJust a fun aside, but did you know that "point blank" actually means something completely different than the way that most people use the term? Rather than meaning something like "so close you couldn't miss" (which is how it's usually used) it technically means the much longer distance at which you can ignore gravitational drop and just hold the sights on the target you are aiming at. As in: "Therefore point blank range for a deer size target is about 275 metres (300-310 yards)" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-blank_range https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-blank_range). For reference, a 300 yard shot at a deer is really far, rarely should be taken, and is rarely successful. Which is to say that by analogy, answering a question "point blank" arguably should mean something closer to "can access the information in a few minutes with an internet connection"!
- tigerlily 3y agoSome things I haven't seen answers to yet: What's the best way to store lego to keep it like new, or at least well preserved? Is the material choice of the storage container important? Is it possible to improve the quality of old bricks by storing it together new material of the same plastic type? (A bit like reviving stale bread or cookies/biscuits with fresh ones) Anybody any experience with this?
- ComputerGuru 3y agoNot a Lego expert but from a material science perspective your worst culprit is always going to be UV, or sun exposure. It’ll change colors, make plastics brittle, and even introduce some warping. Then come heat and oxygen. Obviously some materials are more susceptible to chemical damage than others; ABS is very prone to breaking down even from exposure to weak solvents while PET is ridiculously solvent-resistant. Storing old bricks with new shouldn’t really matter. ABS off gases but mainly when heated. Most damage to ABS is irreversible. It’s not a great long-term material and it has many shortcomings.
- bboygravity 3y agoAnecdote about how badly ABS ages: I have a 30+ year old car and all the parts on it are fine EXCEPT everything made from ABS. After this long inside a car (little UV exposure I'm guessing, but lots of heat exposure) the strength of 1 to 2 mm thick ABS is "empty egg shell" strength. Really really brittle.
- ComputerGuru 3y agoTime to get a 3D printer!
- Ma8ee 3y agoI’ve recently unpacked my own childhoods Lego, and most pieces are like new even after 40 years. Some white pieces are a bit yellow, but it’s inconsistent, so I suspect that happened by laying in the sun before it all was packed away. The battery boxes seems to have become a bit brittle. The lego has been stored in cardboard boxes first in the attic in my parents house, and after that in miscellaneous cellars and then an attic again.
- paulkrush 3y agoThis is a great read about plastics from an engineering perspective. Also this: "and, famously, LEGO makes most of the tires in the world, by number if not by mass!"
- nuancebydefault 3y agoWas rubber (epdm?) mentioned btw?
- paulkrush 3y agoNot rubber or epdm,but SEBS (Styrene-Ethylene-Butylene-Styrene) But Wikipedia does not use SEBS: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoplastic_elastomer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoplastic_elastomer
- oktwtf 3y agoThe ones made of actual candy are the most palatable.
- userbinator 3y agoAs someone who liked to push my Lego creations to the limit when I was very young, the smell of friction-overheated ABS is very familiar to me.
- SCUSKU 3y agoWhat types of things were you building? Presumably you were using the Technic sets?
- userbinator 3y agoVehicles with sliding rails and the like.
- alentred 3y agoHard to not to have a cognitive dissonance on this one. As a kid I loved Lego, and my kids have plenty too. But thinking of all that plastic that eventually makes its way to a dumpster... Lego is brining so much joy, but you can't ignore the environmental impact too. I am actually disappointed at myself about not having thought to buy second-hand instead. It is an interesting example of why the pollution problem is hard. Here we are not even talking about anything essential for the quality life, not even comfort. That's basically "just a toy". But, theoretically, would we be willing to give it up if we don't find an environmentally friendly way to make it?
- kjkjadksj 3y agoWho is throwing away their lego? Its probably the one hand me down toy thats truly stood the test of time.
- jtriangle 3y agoIdk what happened with you, but I inherited legos from my older cousins and then when I grew out of my collection my newphew got it. No legos ended up in a landfill. If you threw yours out, that's your fault, and does not mean there needs to be an environmentally friendly way to make legos (which will undoubtedly be functionally worse and not last as long).
- alentred 3y agoOh, I am not saying I threw out mine, I wouldn't do such a thing. It is just hard to imagine that all of it ever produced is not.
- tacticalmook 3y agoLego is a mole hill compared to the mountain of plastic that is _intended_ to be thrown away - consumer and industrial.
- romseb 3y agoPlastics have become part of our culture. Just about everybody wears it on their bodies. As for environmentally friendly alternatives, the German company Anker offers “real” bricks made of a mixture of quartz sand, chalk, and linseed oil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchor_Stone_Blocks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchor_Stone_Blocks
- 1-6 3y agoI wonder how much plastic waste the Lego company has added to the environment?
- PhilipRoman 3y agoI don't see why Lego needs to be singled out here. It is (by volume and weight) a relatively expensive product and it's not like anyone is buying bricks by the ton and dumping them from trucks. Besides, it is one of the most reusable toys to ever exist.
- dudul 3y agoIf it's plastic in use does it matter? Legos don't get thrown out. They almost never break with the exception of a few exotic pieces that are a big more fragile. Even clips are surprisingly durable. Compare this with dolls, trucks, etc that break after 6 months and do end up in the trash. Phones, laptops, TVs these create so much more waste than bricks that are still perfectly usable 40 years later - I know, I have a lot.
- jhallenworld 3y agoSo I repair old cars and old electronics. Is there anything better than ABS? The problem with it is that it becomes brittle with age. Same question for belts that you find in record players and tape recorders- they turn to goo.
- fpgaminer 3y agoDelrin? You can machine it like steel and it has great temperature resistance. In fact, it gets used in modern automotive quite a bit.