Lego builds toward end of harmful plastics use
Amid environmental concerns, toymaker aiming for materials to come from sources like plant fibers or recycled bottles
ABILLUND, Denmark t the heart of this town lies a building that is a veritable temple to the area’s most famous creation, the humble Lego brick. It is filled with complex creations, from a 50-foot tree to a collection of multicolored dinosaurs, all of them built with a product that has barely changed in more than 50 years.
A short walk away in its research lab, though, Lego is trying to refashion the product it is best known for: It wants to eliminate its dependence on petroleum-based plastics, and build its toys entirely from plant-based or recycled materials by 2030.
The challenge is designing blocks that click together yet separate easily, retain bright colors and survive the rigors of being put through a laundry load, or the weight of an unknowing parent’s foot. In essence, the company wants to switch the ingredients but keep the product exactly the same.
“We need to learn again how to do this,” said Henrik Ostergaard Nielsen, a production supervisor at Lego’s factory here in Billund.
Leo brings with it a substantial carbon footprint. Lego emits about 1 million tons of carbon dioxide each year, about three-quarters of which comes from the raw materials that go into its factories, according to Tim Brooks, the company’s vice president for environmental responsibility.
Lego is taking a two-pronged approach to reducing the amount of pollution it causes. For one, it wants to keep all of its packaging out of landfills by 2025 by eliminating things like plastic bags inside its cardboard packaging.
It is also pushing for the plastic in its toys to come from sources like plant fibers or recycled bottles by 2030.
Consumers worldwide have voiced growing alarm about the impact of plastic waste on the environment, and increasing numbers of companies are trying to use packaging materials that are recyclable or otherwise less polluting. Coca-Cola, for instance, plans to collect and recycle the equivalent of all the bottles and cans it uses by 2030. Unilever, the consumer goods giant, says all its plastic packaging will be recyclable or compostable by 2025. Others, like McDonald’s and Starbucks, are doing away with plastic straws in their outlets.
Lego faces a more complex problem than other consumer businesses, though — for this Danish company, plastics are not the packaging, they are the product.
The toymaker’s highly automated manufacturing facility in Billund is a picture of clock work. At a mammoth factory more than 500 yards long, machines arranged in rows melt plastic pellets into a molten paste and press them into molds. A few seconds later, a batch of colored bricks pops out, and is deposited into driverless carts, taken to be stored for shipment. Each day, the facility churns out about 100 million “elements,” the term Lego uses for the bricks, trees and doll parts it sells.
By the 1950s, Lego was experimenting with plastic bricks. His son Godtfred began marketing the distinctive little blocks not just as toys, but as a building system that could be expanded and passed on to later generations. Bricks that date back to 1958 are still compatible with current products, according to Lego.
Today, the company sells its wares worldwide and has secured partnerships with film franchises like Batman and Star Wars to market not just themed brick sets, but movies and video games featuring Lego toys. It brought in 7.8 billion kroner, or about $1.2 billion, in profit last year, making it larger than its U.S. rivals Mattel and Hasbro.
Regarding its plastics goal, Lego’s problem is that virtually all of the plastic currently used worldwide — including that molded by Lego into toy bricks — is created from petroleum.
Currently, Lego mostly uses a substance known as ABS, short for acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, a common plastic also used for computer keys and mobile phone cases. It’s tough, yet slightly elastic, and also has a polished surface. To wean itself off products like ABS, Lego has begun an exhaustive search for new, sustainable materials.
It is investing about 1 billion kroner and hiring about 100 people to work on these changes. Technicians methodically test promising materials to see whether they can take a whack without breaking, or survive a hard pull. They are checked to see if they withstand the heat of a Saudi Arabian summer, and take on the bright color palette that Lego bricks are famous for. The company’s bricks may look simple, but they are made with incredible precision.
“We look at how does it look, and how does it feel,” said Nelleke van der Puil, Lego’s vice president for materials.