See How LEGO Is Working Towards A More Sustainable Future – Creating Brick Prototypes Made From Recyclables

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In a bid to go greener and search for ways to become more sustainable in the near future, the LEGO Group has created its very first prototype brick that’s made from recycled plastics. This new model uses PET plastic from discarded bottles, and has even managed to pass their incredibly strict safety and quality requirements, the company shares.

It took a team of over 150 people to work on the product as they searched for better and more sustainable solutions for the toy company’s infamous building blocks. Throughout the past three years, the material scientists and engineers of the LEGO team tested more than 250 variations of PET materials, as well as hundreds more of other forms of plastics. The outcome was a LEGO block prototype that managed to meet a number of the Danish company’s safety, quality, and play requirements, including its amazing clutch power.


Vice President of Environmental Responsibility at LEGO, Tim Brooks, said, “We are super excited about this breakthrough. The biggest challenge on our sustainability journey is rethinking and innovating new materials that are as durable, strong and high quality as our existing bricks – and fit with LEGO elements made over the past 60 years.”

Before customers get too excited though, the company quickly points out that it might take a while before these sustainable bricks created from recycled materials actually appear in their boxes and in toy stores. That’s because the next phase of their testing is anticipated to take a year to complete at least. Regardless, the company has already put in a patent pending on this new material formulation, which the company claims “increases the durability of PET to make it strong enough for LEGO bricks.”

Vice President Brooks also explained, “Even though it will be a while before they will be able to play with bricks made from recycled plastic, we want to let kids know we’re working on it and bring them along on the journey with us.”

He added, “Experimentation and falling is an important part of learning and innovation. Just as kids build, unbuild and rebuild with LEGO bricks at home, we’re doing the same in our lab.”


The LEGO company also shares that the prototype is made from recycled PET, which is sourced from suppliers within the United States that happen to use processes that are approved by both the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in order to guarantee their overall quality. As a reference, the average one-liter plastic PET bottle offers enough raw material to produce at least ten small sized LEGO bricks.

Back in 2020, the toy company announced that they will start to remove single-use plastics from their boxes. They also went on to say that they will invest at least $400 million over the next three years until 2022 to move forward in their sustainability efforts.

See how the toy company is making their brick transformation in the video below.

 

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