DENMARK – Lego, the toy giant maker has abandoned its plans to produce bricks using recycled drinks bottles due to the failure of the new material to reduce carbon emissions.
The company currently uses acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), a fossil-based thermoplastic, for its products.
But after two years of searching for a more sustainable material, the company has ended its quest. Instead, they have decided to focus on improving the footprint of their ABS, which currently requires approximately 2 kilograms of oil to produce 1 kilogram of plastic.
Lego’s last attempt to convert its materials entirely was by purchasing rPET from the beverage packaging industry.
This tactic, which is already widely used by the fashion and garment industries, is a controversial method. Packaging associations see it as a disrupting force for the European circular economy because it breaks the hard-earned loop system established by deposit return systems (DRS).
Beverage packaging DRS systems currently produce around 70% of the European market’s rPET, but producers receive around 30% back – despite continued calls for a priority access system for the beverage market, which could encourage DRS development for other sectors.
Lego stressed that it remains “fully committed” to producing its bricks from sustainable materials by 2032, despite the setback.
It said it was still testing a range of alternative sustainable materials to use in making bricks, including other recycled plastics, as well as plastics made from other sources, such as e-methanol.
A Lego spokesman said: “We remain fully committed to making Lego bricks from sustainable materials by 2032.
“We are investing more than 1.4 billion US dollars (£1.1 billion) in sustainability initiatives in the four years to 2025 as part of our efforts to transition to more sustainable materials and reduce our carbon emissions by 37% by 2032.”
The group has been making a push to enhance its sustainable credentials in recent years. They aim to find an alternative to oil-based plastic bricks and are also introducing paper-based packaging. Their goal is to eliminate the use of plastic bags by the end of 2025.
Lego’s chief executive Niels Christiansen told the Financial Times newspaper that there was no “magic material” to solve sustainability issues.
He said: “We tested hundreds and hundreds of materials. It’s just not been possible to find material like that.”
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