In order to achieve sustainable growth, bio-based raw materials will be "very important" for the LEGO company, Nelleke van der Puil, vice president of LEGO Materials, said in a keynote speech at the recent Biorizon annual event.
Toy manufacturers do not actively choose bio-based raw materials, but consumers demand them. LEGO research even shows that consumers don't care if their LEGO bricks are bio-based, however, they do expect manufacturers to make sustainable products. Launched in 2018, "botanicals" (a type of Lego bricks in the shape of trees and shrubs) made of bio-based PE have been well received.
Van der Puil said: “We will now expand the use of bio-PE (bio-based PE) to other elements, but we don’t want to commit to any one solution. We want to test several options and gain experience. That’s why LEGO is working on Experimenting with bioplastics, recycling and reuse. In practice, this means testing PLA, r-PET, ABS with recycled content, PEF and other plastics. It is clear that the circular value chain offers huge opportunities for LEGO products, And bio-based polymers are an important part of that."
LEGO ditches virgin petroleum-based plastic by 2030
Lego's iconic plastic bricks before are not very good for the environment, it's from oil-based ABS plastic and doesn't degrade. So now, LEGO designers are even more committed to improving this design. Lego has vowed to phase out virgin petroleum-based plastics from its products within a decade by investing heavily in recycling and bio-based materials.
Some plastic products can be replaced with sustainably sourced wood, but LEGO believes that much of the material gap left by phasing out virgin fossil plastics can be addressed by recycling materials or bioplastics.
Bioplastic toy products made from sugarcane
"If a consumer gets two LEGO pieces of the same color, but using plant-based polyethylene and traditional polyethylene, there is no difference in quality, appearance or performance," said Tim Brooks, vice president of environmental responsibility at The LEGO Group. More importantly, the production process of the two is not much different, which greatly reduces the increase in production costs.
Another benefit of plant-based plastic is that it is renewable from raw material to finished product. This means that in addition to cost savings at the production stage, its environmental impact and recycling costs are also much lower than conventional plastics after being discarded.
