Lego discards plan to build bricks from recycled plastic bottles

28-Sep-2023

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(dpa) Lego is saying goodbye to its plan to manufacture building blocks from recycled PET bottles. After several years of testing, the toy company from Billund, Denmark, has decided not to pursue this project any further. This was announced by a spokesman for the Lego Group in Scandinavia on Monday. Earlier, the Financial Times had reported.

Most plastics are based on crude oil, including the material used in Lego bricks. According to the spokesman, however, the company is not giving up efforts to find oil-free materials for its products: Lego remains firmly committed to making bricks from sustainable materials by 2032, he said.

In June 2021, Lego had presented a prototype of a building block made from the PET plastic of discarded bottles, which it said met the company's quality and safety requirements.

This prototype now remains in the drawer. According to Lego, extra steps in the production process mean that the_{CO2 emissions of} the bricks are not reduced by the material.

Recycled PET is just one of hundreds of different sustainable materials that Lego has tested, it was said from Billund. The group is currently testing and developing a range of alternative materials, including other recyclable plastics and those from other sources such as e-methanol, according to the statement.

Lego plans to invest more than $1.2 billion (1.1 billion euros) in sustainability initiatives by 2025, according to the company.

Note: This article has been translated using a computer system without human intervention. LUMITOS offers these automatic translations to present a wider range of current news. Since this article has been translated with automatic translation, it is possible that it contains errors in vocabulary, syntax or grammar. The original article in German can be found here.

https://www.chemeurope.com/en/news/1181665/lego-discards-plan-to-build-bricks-from-recycled-plastic-bottles.html