5 ms·

It's sad, but to be fair it's "reduce reuse recycle" and there's no toy more reusable than Lego.

wirrbel 3y ago
I wonder where all the bricks go. I still have the lego bricks my parents got for my older sister which I inherited. It’s a huge box, most of it was passed down to our family from other families . My daughter has already a massive brick collection just because of the sets she was presented with. By now she very child should have no need anymore to buy Lego bricks so many should be in circulation. I just fear they are being thrown away.
- bonzini 3y ago
  There's a huge secondary market but it certainly could be bigger. I wonder if Lego themselves shouldn't advertise more how to get rid of old bricks.
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    Lego bricks are very cheap to manufacture. The main cost is R&D and licensing. Lego themselves are probably better off financially having a recycling program where the bricks are melted down to make park benches, and then making brand new bricks. That will cost less than cleaning, sorting and QA-ing recycled bricks.
    - kuchenbecker 3y ago
      Old bricks keep value very well to the tune of $0.10c/piece. You can get a park bench for less than 2k [1] A park bench made of old legos would only make sense where it was made with 20k pieces or fewer. I would guestimate a park bench of recycled Lego would ba a 50k opportunity cost [1] https://www.belson.com/Parkview-Style-Steel-Park-Benches-with-Steel-Frame https://www.belson.com/Parkview-Style-Steel-Park-Benches-wit...
      - londons_explore 3y ago
        > Old bricks keep value very well to the tune of $0.10c/piece. True, but to the Lego company themselves, new bricks perhaps cost only $0.005 per piece, and old bricks probably are worth far less.
        Cthulhu_ 3y ago
        To Lego themselves, they're not worth much, but to collectors they will be. But that involves a lot of labor involving sorting, cleaning, organizing, order picking and shipping, the question there is whether Lego is willing to do that or if they leave it up to hobbyists.
- piokoch 3y ago
  Nobody throws away Lego bricks, there is huge market, you can sell them in various ways (by kilograms, by pieces).
  - orobinson 3y ago
    People do try to throw them away. A good chunk of my kids' lego collection is a mixed selection of blocks we found in a skip.
  - westurner 3y ago
    https://lego.com/replay https://lego.com/replay : > Q: Do I need to clean my bricks before I donate? > A: Thank you for the offer but no, you don’t. Give Back Box will be sorting and cleaning the bricks before donation. To help them in their job, you can try to remove obviously damaged or disfigured bricks from your donation.
  - hyperman1 3y ago
    I got 75% of a 7745 train, a ton of rails, a traffic light and assorted mystery trainish blocks from a bag that someone rescued from a dumpster. Unfortunately, they could carry only 1 of the 2 bags in the dumpster. I got it very cheaply, as they didn't think they would get much money from it. A lot of the rails were snapped. Some have white paint. I restored it, but my heart wept for the previous owner.
- Yoric 3y ago
  Don't worry, my kid is buying them by the kilo at yard sales :)
- Freak_NL 3y ago
  The market just grew a lot in the past decades (adult fans in particular, but on all fronts). Also, Lego will inevitably get thrown away, but a lot of it resides in boxes in attics etc. stored for decades for the next generation (my four year old is busy laying out his claim on my stash at his grandparents house and arranging for its transfer to him).
- beardyw 3y ago
  I reckon archeologists will be digging them up in centuries to come.
- zozbot234 3y ago
  The whole point of LEGO bricks is to act as a carbon sink for the foreseeable future. The whole construction toys angle is just a ruse.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    I have thousands of pounds of carbon sink in my basement!
  - alan-crowe 3y ago
    It is more nefarious than that https://babylonbee.com/news/lego-introduces-new-sharper-bricks-that-instantly-kill-you-when-you-step-on-them/ https://babylonbee.com/news/lego-introduces-new-sharper-bric... These are depopulation bricks.
    - sacnoradhq 3y ago
      Christian conspiracy theories need not apply.
  - usefulcat 3y ago
    A very, very expensive carbon sink..
- tivert 3y ago
  > By now she very child should have no need anymore to buy Lego bricks so many should be in circulation. It might not be so much of an issue for legos, but but I've read you should not give vintage toys to kids, because past manufacturing process do not meet modern standards. For instance: vintage yellow megablocks have high levels of heavy metals (https://tamararubin.com/2020/12/how-old-are-your-childs-toys-mega-bloks-large-yellow-building-block-c-2007-5402-ppm-lead-90-is-unsafe-for-kids-88-ppm-mercury/ https://tamararubin.com/2020/12/how-old-are-your-childs-toys...). I threw away some of those my wife got at a consignment sale, because I could not tell when they were made. > I just fear they are being thrown away. They are being thrown away.
bluetomcat 3y ago
It's less reusable than in the past due to the sheer variety of pieces and colours. It's not just rectangular bricks, windows, doors and glasses anymore. The majority of bricks are small, angled, curved, sloped pieces for very specific applications. It allows impressively finished models with a huge piece count, but the genericity of parts for "general construction" just isn't there.
- ulrikrasmussen 3y ago
  And for this reason I think that LEGO actually kind of sucks now compared to when I was a kid. I think it's far more difficult for my kids to just start building something because all the bricks that they get from the LEGO sets are special. At one point we sat down and separated out all the "standard" bricks from the special ones and put them in a separate container and that has made them more interested in starting creative builds on their own. I think LEGO's financial crisis in the late 90's and early 00's ended when they started making more themed bricks, especially licensed themes such as Star Wars. And this is the problem: In order for LEGO to be profitable they need to keep producing novelty sets rather than sets with standard bricks, and that is fundamentally at odds with being sustainable
  - gaganyaan 3y ago
    I can't find the source for where I read this, but I thought a large part of their financial crisis was because they were designing lots of sets with custom bricks that weren't reused in other sets, which inflated manufacturing costs, and now they've gone back to reusing bricks between sets heavily. Maybe you have lots of bricks from that period? Or what exactly do you mean by "standard"? I've seen some pretty clever uses for the same brick in different sets where the brick might not be considered "standard" by you.
sacnoradhq 3y ago
All military caltrops can be replace by Lego. And, Ukraine would win with that kind of area denial weapon and get hauled before The Hague for war crimes.

I wonder where all the bricks go. I still have the lego bricks my parents got for my older sister which I inherited. It’s a huge box, most of it was passed down to our family from other families . My daughter has already a massive brick collection just because of the sets she was presented with. By now she very child should have no need anymore to buy Lego bricks so many should be in circulation. I just fear they are being thrown away.

bonzini 3y ago
There's a huge secondary market but it certainly could be bigger. I wonder if Lego themselves shouldn't advertise more how to get rid of old bricks.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  Lego bricks are very cheap to manufacture. The main cost is R&D and licensing. Lego themselves are probably better off financially having a recycling program where the bricks are melted down to make park benches, and then making brand new bricks. That will cost less than cleaning, sorting and QA-ing recycled bricks.
  - kuchenbecker 3y ago
    Old bricks keep value very well to the tune of $0.10c/piece. You can get a park bench for less than 2k [1] A park bench made of old legos would only make sense where it was made with 20k pieces or fewer. I would guestimate a park bench of recycled Lego would ba a 50k opportunity cost [1] https://www.belson.com/Parkview-Style-Steel-Park-Benches-with-Steel-Frame https://www.belson.com/Parkview-Style-Steel-Park-Benches-wit...
    - londons_explore 3y ago
      > Old bricks keep value very well to the tune of $0.10c/piece. True, but to the Lego company themselves, new bricks perhaps cost only $0.005 per piece, and old bricks probably are worth far less.
      - Cthulhu_ 3y ago
        To Lego themselves, they're not worth much, but to collectors they will be. But that involves a lot of labor involving sorting, cleaning, organizing, order picking and shipping, the question there is whether Lego is willing to do that or if they leave it up to hobbyists.
piokoch 3y ago
Nobody throws away Lego bricks, there is huge market, you can sell them in various ways (by kilograms, by pieces).
- orobinson 3y ago
  People do try to throw them away. A good chunk of my kids' lego collection is a mixed selection of blocks we found in a skip.
- westurner 3y ago
  https://lego.com/replay https://lego.com/replay : > Q: Do I need to clean my bricks before I donate? > A: Thank you for the offer but no, you don’t. Give Back Box will be sorting and cleaning the bricks before donation. To help them in their job, you can try to remove obviously damaged or disfigured bricks from your donation.
- hyperman1 3y ago
  I got 75% of a 7745 train, a ton of rails, a traffic light and assorted mystery trainish blocks from a bag that someone rescued from a dumpster. Unfortunately, they could carry only 1 of the 2 bags in the dumpster. I got it very cheaply, as they didn't think they would get much money from it. A lot of the rails were snapped. Some have white paint. I restored it, but my heart wept for the previous owner.
Yoric 3y ago
Don't worry, my kid is buying them by the kilo at yard sales :)
Freak_NL 3y ago
The market just grew a lot in the past decades (adult fans in particular, but on all fronts). Also, Lego will inevitably get thrown away, but a lot of it resides in boxes in attics etc. stored for decades for the next generation (my four year old is busy laying out his claim on my stash at his grandparents house and arranging for its transfer to him).
beardyw 3y ago
I reckon archeologists will be digging them up in centuries to come.
zozbot234 3y ago
The whole point of LEGO bricks is to act as a carbon sink for the foreseeable future. The whole construction toys angle is just a ruse.
- bombcar 3y ago
  I have thousands of pounds of carbon sink in my basement!
- alan-crowe 3y ago
  It is more nefarious than that https://babylonbee.com/news/lego-introduces-new-sharper-bricks-that-instantly-kill-you-when-you-step-on-them/ https://babylonbee.com/news/lego-introduces-new-sharper-bric... These are depopulation bricks.
  - sacnoradhq 3y ago
    Christian conspiracy theories need not apply.
- usefulcat 3y ago
  A very, very expensive carbon sink..
tivert 3y ago
> By now she very child should have no need anymore to buy Lego bricks so many should be in circulation. It might not be so much of an issue for legos, but but I've read you should not give vintage toys to kids, because past manufacturing process do not meet modern standards. For instance: vintage yellow megablocks have high levels of heavy metals (https://tamararubin.com/2020/12/how-old-are-your-childs-toys-mega-bloks-large-yellow-building-block-c-2007-5402-ppm-lead-90-is-unsafe-for-kids-88-ppm-mercury/ https://tamararubin.com/2020/12/how-old-are-your-childs-toys...). I threw away some of those my wife got at a consignment sale, because I could not tell when they were made. > I just fear they are being thrown away. They are being thrown away.

bluetomcat 3y ago

It's less reusable than in the past due to the sheer variety of pieces and colours. It's not just rectangular bricks, windows, doors and glasses anymore. The majority of bricks are small, angled, curved, sloped pieces for very specific applications. It allows impressively finished models with a huge piece count, but the genericity of parts for "general construction" just isn't there.

ulrikrasmussen 3y ago
And for this reason I think that LEGO actually kind of sucks now compared to when I was a kid. I think it's far more difficult for my kids to just start building something because all the bricks that they get from the LEGO sets are special. At one point we sat down and separated out all the "standard" bricks from the special ones and put them in a separate container and that has made them more interested in starting creative builds on their own. I think LEGO's financial crisis in the late 90's and early 00's ended when they started making more themed bricks, especially licensed themes such as Star Wars. And this is the problem: In order for LEGO to be profitable they need to keep producing novelty sets rather than sets with standard bricks, and that is fundamentally at odds with being sustainable
- gaganyaan 3y ago
  I can't find the source for where I read this, but I thought a large part of their financial crisis was because they were designing lots of sets with custom bricks that weren't reused in other sets, which inflated manufacturing costs, and now they've gone back to reusing bricks between sets heavily. Maybe you have lots of bricks from that period? Or what exactly do you mean by "standard"? I've seen some pretty clever uses for the same brick in different sets where the brick might not be considered "standard" by you.

sacnoradhq 3y ago

All military caltrops can be replace by Lego. And, Ukraine would win with that kind of area denial weapon and get hauled before The Hague for war crimes.