> the material didn’t reduce carbon emissions<p>Good on them for checking that, but aren't there additional concerns with plastics, e.g. reducing the amount of microplastics in the environment?
Of all the plastics. LEGO plastics are probably the ones I am least worried about. Mostly because I inherited my dads LEGO sets and then my nephew inherited my LEGO sets. These are plastics that are used for generations. My bigger worry are single use plastics.<p>But good on LEGO for researching alternatives.
No, Lego does not say it won't use recycled plastic, it won't use this specific recycled plastic, i.e. recycled PET from water bottles, as it was investigating. It is still committed to research alternative recycled plastics options.
It's so rare for a company to actually do the research to see if their greenwashing campaign is actually doing anything for the environment. This is great to see
I was just chatting with friends about my misgivings of gifting Lego sets to my kid. He absolutely loves building them and I enjoy serving as building assistant to him.<p>But Lego makes thousands of pounds of new plastic toys every year. I’m not sure I want to support that.<p>We’re looking at buying used bricks in bulk, and you can find instructions online. But then you’re bidding against everyone else.
This is an interesting thing to publicly post (though it might be true) given their business involves pumping out millions of tonnes of fresh plastic that will probably end up in the environment over time. If I was in their PR department I would try to not draw any attention to myself in this space.
Look, I do realize that "recycling plastic" for years was just "ship to China / Mexico", so it was all a giant scam that the government helped the plastic industry perpetuate: <a href="https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=362" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=362</a><p>But... this struck me as weird. Recycling plastic doesn't <i>need to help reduce carbon emissions</i>, but rather, reduce non-biodegradeable waste that will outnumber fish by 2050: <a href="https://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/en/plastic-problem/plastic-soup/more-plastic-than-fish/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/en/plastic-problem/pla...</a><p><i>As CBS News reports, Lego said that it “decided not to progress” with the bricks after it “found the material didn’t reduce carbon emissions,</i><p>I find this whole obsession with CO2 and "carbon emissions" to be destructive because it takes away the focus from the more pressing concerns like pollution, desertification of farmland, overfishing, collapse of natural ecosystems from rainforests to kelp forests to coral reefs, plummeting populations of insects, etc. etc. That is far far more dire than ocean levels rising by a foot, or humans having to move out of arid environments. And in this case, it's almost comical that <i>reducing plastic pollution is measured by how much it can reduce carbon emissions</i>.
Rather than recycling plastic, it would make more sense for Lego to include an offer to re-buy the used Lego pieces in each package, so people become aware of the resell value and don't throw them away after a few years. It may even allow them to participate in the Lego resellers market.
But the use of a virgin plastic means the additional production of oil.<p>I don't understand how not using recycled plastic is better.. One requires the extraction of new raw material, the other does not.