Lego gives up using recycled plastic for its bricks: it would emit more CO2 than using oil
Danish toy maker Lego is abandoning plans to make its popular bricks from recycled plastic instead of petroleum-based products, after finding that the recycled material would lead to higher lifetime carbon emissions due to new equipment Lego CEO Niels Christiansen told the Financial Times .
Two years ago, Lego announced a breakthrough that would allow it to produce its legendary bricks from recycled plastic bottles instead of petroleum-based plastic.
At the time, the toymaker was “super excited” to make the bricks out of recycled polyethylene terephthalate (RPET). Then there was a direct encounter with the reality of the facts.
After two years of estimating the carbon emissions of producing recycled PET bricks, Lego found that recycled plastic was not the silver bullet for sustainability, either in terms of emissions and energy, or in terms of durability. of the bricks.
Lego currently uses petroleum-derived acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) in its bricks and will now look to reduce the carbon emissions of ABS and evaluate other materials.
The switch from ABS to recycled PET was expected to lead to changes in the manufacturing process and factories, resulting in higher carbon emissions overall, Tim Brooks, Lego's head of sustainability, told the FT.
“After all this, the carbon footprint would have been higher. It was disappointing,” Brooks said.
Lego executives told the FT they will look to incorporate more biodegradable and recycled materials into the ABS used to make the bricks and encourage the reuse of old sets under the Replay programme.
Commenting on the FT article, Lego told Bloomberg via email: “We are currently testing and developing Lego bricks made from a range of sustainable alternative materials, including other recycled plastics and plastics made from alternative sources such as e- methanol”.
Earlier this year, Lego and pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk reached a deal with renewable energy company European Energy to buy methanol produced from renewable energy to replace some of their fossil fuel-derived plastic production. Danish company European Energy will produce methanol from renewable energy and biogenic CO2, commonly called e-methanol, which will in turn be used to produce plastic, Lego said in April.
How much will eco-bricks cost? Nobody knows, but if the price difference were significant it would open the way to imitations and counterfeits.
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The article Lego gives up using recycled plastic for its bricks: it would emit more CO2 than using oil comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/lego-rinuncia-ad-usare-la-plastica-ricilata-per-i-suoi-mattoncini-emetterebbe-piu-co2-che-usare-il-petrolio/ on Tue, 26 Sep 2023 08:00:14 +0000.