Lego decided it would not produce its bricks entirely from recycled plastic, considering it would generate more carbon emissions by changing all its manufacturing processes to not deviate from its iconic model.
Two years after announcing its first prototype, Lego will not produce its iconic bricks entirely with recycled plastics.
It would lead to more carbon emissions over the products’ lifetime than with the conventional oil-based acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) currently making the bricks, the chief executive Niels Christiansen told the Financial Times.
The news marks a step back in its research for lowering its carbon footprint. “We tested hundreds and hundreds of materials. It’s just not been possible to find a material,” that would solve the sustainability issue, Mr. Christiansen added.
In 2021, the family-owned company unveiled a prototype Lego brick made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) from discarded plastic bottles. “It’s the culmination of three years’ hard work from a team of more than 150 experts who have tested over 250 variations of PET materials,” announced the company at the time.
On average, a one-liter plastic PET bottle provided enough raw material for ten 2 x 4 Lego bricks. But they will not go into large-scale production.
According to the company’s head of sustainability, Tim Brooks, the “level of disruption” for the production was such that it required to “change everything” in their factories, thus leading to a higher carbon footprint. The results were “disappointing,” according to Mr. Brooks.
In their tests, Lego was also seeking to keep what the toymaker calls “clutch power,” the capacity of the bricks to lock in together.
However, the material they tested proved softer than ABS. Lego argues it needed to add extra ingredients and large amounts of energy to process and dry the blocks so that they would keep the same safety and durability.
“It’s better to reuse than recycle”
About 2 kilograms of petroleum is needed to make 1 kg of ABS, which is used in about 80% of Lego blocks.
The Danish toymaker needs to change its initial ambition to remove all oil-based plastics in its materials by 2030 and aims to gradually incorporate more bio-based and recycled material in the ABS bricks. But they won’t entirely come from sustainable sources.
The group, which reported a 6.4 billion kroner (908 million dollars) operating profit for the 2023 first semester, will triple spending on sustainability to 3 billion kroner (426 million dollars) a year by 2025.
In 2018, they started producing elements from bio-polyethylene (bio-PE) made from sugarcane, which can be used for soft pieces such as trees, branches, leaves and accessories for Lego figures. In 2020, Lego began removing single-use plastics from their boxes. The company also tends to reduce energy from their factories to produce their toys.
In 2019, the 87-year-old company launched the Replay program in the United States, a year later in Canada and probably next year in Europe, to reuse bricks by giving unused ones to charities. “It’s better to reuse than recycle. So we’re looking at a circular business model — how do we earn revenue from recircling bricks. It’s quite a shift in thinking and ideas,” acknowledged Mr. Books.
Lego committed to reducing emissions by 37% compared to their 2019 baseline to reach 726,926 tons of CO2 equivalent by 2032. In 2021, the latest data available, Lego’s total greenhouse gas emissions were 1.5 million tCO2e.
