The toy makers have announced their plans to eliminate the use of fossil fuels in their Lego bricks and replace them with recyclable plastic and reusable materials.
The company will achieve this by reducing the quantity of oil used for the brick production while adding reusable and recyclable materials, according to FastCompany.
These changes will make the production of sets like Wicked or Fortnite Battle Buses more expensive. The costs will increase by up to 70% due to the usage of renewable resin, the new material the company will use. ”This means a significant increase in the cost of producing a Lego brick”, says Niels Christiansen for Reuters.
However, the price of the Lego sets will not increase.
”With a family dedicated to sustainability, it is a privilege to be able to pay extra for raw materials without charging our clients more,” adds Christiansen.
The company has previous plans to use polyethylene terephthalate (PET) for their classic bricks, but they came to the conclusion that using it would create more pollution than current materials.
”After three years of testing, we found out that the material does not reduce the carbon emissions [...] we are not abandoning our efforts to create oil-free bricks,” said a spokesperson for CNN in 2023.
While new toy makers are dedicated to creating eco-friendly toys, such as Green Toys, who use 100% reusable materials, the original creators are aiming to remove the oil usage as well. The creator of Barbie, Mattel, has promised to give up on plastic for environmentally friendly options and to reduce the usage of plastic for packaging by 25% by 2030.
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