Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Last year Lego said it would spend 1 billion Danish Krone ($150.5 million) to
develop new sustainable materials for its plastic Lego toys and packaging
materials. This includes the establishment of the Lego Sustainable Materials
Centre in Billund, Denmark.
The company has already hired at least 100 engineers to develop alternatives to
petroleum-based materials and is making good on its promises.
It’s a big deal for Lego, which Fast Company calls “the Apple of toys,” moving
from near bankruptcy in 2003 to briefly beating rival Mattel for a stint in 2014 to
become the biggest toy manufacturer in the world.
Amid its financial success, the company has taken efforts to reduce its carbon
footprint, such as investing in wind farms to offset the energy used in factories
and achieve its goal of using 100 percent renewable energy by 2020.
Between 2013 and 2014, Lego also reduced the size of its boxes by an average of
14 percent to use less cardboard, Lego spokesperson Kathrine Bisgaard Vase
told Environmental Leader. “In 2015, this amounted to approximately 7,000
tonnes less cardboard used,” she said. “In 2015, we also reached the highest
level yet of recycling waste, at 93 percent, and reached our goal of using 100
percent Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper and packaging in our
operations.”
While the company is working to reduce its global footprint across several
initiatives, finding a sustainable material from which to manufacture Legos is a
major one — and the company’s sustainable materials investment is a big deal
for the industry as well.
“Lego bricks are made from the highest quality plastics, which is very functional
and durable as a material. However, the current raw materials we use for
manufacturing Lego bricks are oil-based, and that is a scarce resource,”
Bisgaard Vase said. “So we are searching for a new material that is not based on
oil.
“Our aim is to have a positive impact on the planet, and that means searching for
new materials in a broader sense to have alternatives to the oil-based plastic
used for bricks and plastic packaging, but also to continue improving our paper-
based boxes to be more sustainable. All of which are significant contributors to
our environmental footprint, and therefore we are focusing on several efforts at
the same time.”
Lynch said recycled or reclaimed plastics may not work for Lego because of
safety and quality concerns. “Challenges associated with identifying the source
of recycled materials, as well as concerns about the reuse of hazardous resins
such as PVC, could present contamination issues for Lego,” she explained. “In
addition, the quality of recycled plastic resin degrades every time it is reused,
meaning this is unlikely to meet the durability requirements set by the company
for its products. With that in mind, the difficulties associated with using recycled
or reclaimed materials highlights an opportunity for emerging technologies to
provide a solution to Lego’s problem.”
The momentum to shift the plastics industry away from oil-based materials
seems to be there. And with a financial boost from companies like Lego with
deep pockets, bringing these new biobased alternatives to market looks
promising.