4 ms·

Recycled plastic is crap. Lego design is too demanding on the quality of plastic.

nmeofthestate 3y ago
They 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 ago
  Not 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 ago
    The 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 ago
For certain applications, it certainly is. Perhaps a better match for it needs to be found?
- eimrine 3y ago
  Better 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 ago
That 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 ago
  I 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 ago
    Those 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.

They 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 ago
Not 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 ago
  The 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 ago

For certain applications, it certainly is. Perhaps a better match for it needs to be found?

eimrine 3y ago
Better 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 ago

That 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 ago
I 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 ago
  Those 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.