In Denmark, iconic toy block maker LEGO is halting a pilot program to produce its ubiquitous bricks from recycled polyethylene terephthalate bottles. After two years of trials, LEGO determined that, at scale, converting its supply chain and equipment would actually lead to a larger carbon footprint.
“It’s like trying to make a bike out of wood rather than steel,” Lego’s head of sustainability Tom Brooks told the Financial Times. “In order to scale production, the level of disruption to the manufacturing environment was such that we needed to change everything in our factories. After all that, the carbon footprint would have been higher. It was disappointing.”
LEGO will instead evaluate the scalability of recycled and/or biobased acrylonitrile butadiene styrene.
“We remain fully committed to making Lego bricks from sustainable materials by 2032,” a spokesperson for the company told Dezeen. “We are currently testing and developing Lego bricks made from a range of alternative sustainable materials, including other recycled plastics and plastics made from alternative sources such as e-methanol.”