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Lego abandons effort to make bricks from recycled plastic bottles
- eimrine 3y agoRecycled plastic is crap. Lego design is too demanding on the quality of plastic.
- nmeofthestate 3y agoThey were trying to manufacture bricks from PET, but the properties of that plastic compared to ABS made it too difficult. Doesn't sound like a specifically 'recycled plastic' issue as such.
- sschueller 3y agoNot all LEGO is ABS. https://bricknerd.com/home/every-type-of-plastic-used-by-lego-5-20-22 https://bricknerd.com/home/every-type-of-plastic-used-by-leg...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- userbinator 3y agoThe bricks, the most well-known of their product, certainly are.
- rob74 3y ago...but as the Guardian article says, over 80% is, and those are the bricks you probably think of when hearing "LEGO" - the remainder are elements that are transparent, bendy, have to be especially durable or have other special requirements. The article you linked also includes several "historic" plastic materials that aren't used anymore.
- surfingdino 3y agoFor certain applications, it certainly is. Perhaps a better match for it needs to be found?
- eimrine 3y agoBetter match for a recycled plastic? Finding that match means finding some consumer stuff which doesn't need to be that durable, which is going to mean even more pollution of Earth with plastics. Also finding too durable stuff in 2023 is a difficult problem considering the fact that manufacturers are never interested in doing too durable things.
- capableweb 3y agoThat doesn't seem to be the reason why they're abandoning the plan. It seems like instead it's because they would have to change the entire manufacturing chain, and therefore increase their carbon footprint by changing to recycled plastics instead of decreasing it. > The “level of disruption to the manufacturing environment was such that we needed to change everything in our factories” to scale up recycled PET use, he said. “After all that, the carbon footprint would have been higher. It was disappointing.”
- mytailorisrich 3y agoI think if we replace 'carbon footprint' by 'too expensive' we might get closer to the actual reason. Edit: I am sure that their factories are upgraded periodically so they should defer to the next upgrade instead of doing it now if that's too expensive and resources-hungry. Same as with changing car to an EV, the best for the environment is probably to keep your current ICE car until it's time to replace it and only then to buy an EV. In any case, Lego's problem is that their business is fundamentally plastics at a time when plastics have got a bad rep to the point of being the bogeyman in some cases, and this shows that they are struggling to find a way around that even if only in term of image.
- VBprogrammer 3y agoThose things have a pretty high correlation in many cases.
- eimrine 3y ago> It seems like instead it's because they would have to change the entire manufacturing chain I live in such a place where all chemistry products from grocery shops used to decrease their package. For example, Ariel 500g become Ariel 400g and it happens not only to P&G goods. That tells me that claims about hardness of changing some giant well-functioning manufacturing processes are just a BS.
- Daviey 3y agoDupe story of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37656417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37656417 (which is also a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37642110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37642110)
- mc32 3y agoIf they did this they’d have to sell it as a different brand. Selling their Lego branded toys with recycled plastics would damage their brand. Kids would be better off buying knock offs instead of bricks made with recycled plastics.
- sschueller 3y agoLEGO has used and uses may different kinds of plastic not only ABS. From my understanding the effort here was halted because the whole reason to use PET was to be greener but if manufacturing with PET burns more CO2 than other non renewables it makes no sense at this time.
- sidkshatriya 3y ago[deleted]
- beambot 3y agoLego makes 32 billion plastic bricks per year. No way can they spin their efforts as "environmentally friendly" -- no matter how much greenwashing. (Note: I love Lego products. We have giant bins of previously-loved bricks.)
- azinman2 3y agoSeems the better thing might be to have some kind of “pre-owned” program where kids no longer playing with their legos can send them back, get refurbished, and resold.
- _hcuq 3y agoSingle use plastic is the big problem. Not Lego.
- Aachen 3y agoAnd plastic ending up in UV light or, apparently (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37624070 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37624070), in contact with water and especially hot water, all of which apparently break it down to micro and nanoplastics. I don't know whether it's coarse and rough, but it gets everywhere.
- sproketboy 3y ago[dead]
- throwaway22032 3y agoRecycled plastics only make sense to use in products that will actually be recycled themselves. Lego is essentially a forever product. Not millenia, but compared to plastic destined for waste (packaging, cutlery, bags, etc etc).
- kylebenzle 3y agoI would think the opposite would be true. Plastics can only be recycled a few times before the long chain hydrocarbons start to break down too much, so the process "should" be, Virgin plastic -> 1 time use -> recycled into long term use.
- recursv_thnkng 3y agoYup, reuse/reduce is already built into the brand. I see this as chasing a PR headline that wasn’t necessary for the company.
- cush 3y agoRecycling is a farce. Everyone forgot about Reduce and Reuse
- downrightmike 3y agoAs was the intent of plastic producers. And we are now past the point where there is no competition. No one is going to use glass to replace plastic in mass, the cost is too high.
- galleywest200 3y agoLots of metals are very easily recyclable, not sure that portion is a farce. Plastic, sure.
- burnished 3y agoI thought it was only aluminum that was actually recycled in practice due to cost ratio of smelting vs remelting?
- ToucanLoucan 3y agoIn fairness they "forgot" because of concentrated efforts on the part of plastics producers to make them forget, and the complacency of regulators who were happy to put "you can recycle this" stamps on millions of products that were and still are largely bound for landfills and/or the pacific garbage patch. But offloading responsibility for climate disasters onto consumers instead of the companies actually making all the decisions and the regulators permitting them to is a time honored tradition for the oil industry at this point.
- ChrisArchitect 3y agoif you're going to submit a [dupe], at least point to where the discussion is going on: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37642110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37642110
- sandworm101 3y agoCredit where credit is due. Lego is an inherently reusable product. It is regularly passed down in families. So I don't much care that it isn't recyclable or made from recycled content. Go after all the cheap plastic toys designed to break a week after Christmas to make room for the next must-have thing.
- pipeline_peak 3y agoWhen I was 5 my dad used a couple Lego bricks for his corvette lol
- jpk 3y agoPlease elaborate!
- pipeline_peak 3y agoHe used it to hold down something on the rear windshield of the car, I cant quite remember.
- jonhohle 3y agoMy kids are playing with Lego that belonged to my mother when she was a child! With the exception of Lincoln Log, Erector Sets, and Tinker Toys, I don’t know if any other toys we’ve given them with such pedigree. Going into teenage years they still play with 50+ year old Lego, which are forward compatible with all of my sets from childhood and all of their new sets. Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys lost their interest a long time ago, and erector set hasn’t caught in, except for some school projects.
- vanderZwan 3y agoI guess an argument could be made that discarded lego bricks are a much bigger problem most other plastic products, given their durability. But nobody ever throws lego away.
- sandworm101 3y ago
- Explore3003 3y ago[dead]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]