Plastic waste is one of the biggest problems we humans have created for the environment. It can be extremely dangerous to lots of different plant and animal species, and most plastic take forever to break down once it is buried in the dirt or ends up in the ocean.
Lego bricks; these are pretty much 100 % plastic. Image by Wikimedia Commons user Marval703, posted with the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
I’ve written lots of different posts about why plastic is dangerous and how it affects the ecosystems previously, so if you don’t believe that plastic is bad, check out some of my older post for some great sources. If not, the summary is that it’s extremely bad for the environment, both when it is produced (huge amount of carbon dioxide), and when it is used as pollution (thrown away into nature or the ocean instead of being recycled).
Read more about plastic pollution
If you want to learn more about the issues of plastic, check out some of these posts:
- A study of mesopelagic fish found that 73 % of them had plastic in their gut.
- Plastic waste in the ocean has been found to have a twentyfold increase of disease in corals; adding one more threat to the list of things that could potentially kill corals.
- Scientists have discovered that the soil fungus Aspergillus tubingensis can break down plastic.
- Why does it take so long for plastic to decompose when throw into nature?
Lego is changing to a sustainable alternative to plastic
Today I am going to be sharing some great news with you guys, and that is that the LEGO Group, a family owned company from Denmark will start producing their famous plastic bricks from green plastic. I’m sure all of you have heard about Lego in the past, so I’m not going to be spending lots of time to explain what it is, but for those who don’t know, it’s basically a very popular toy for children where the can create cool stuff from small plastic bricks. Think of it as real-life Minecraft.
The Lego Group intends to shift away from using regular plastic, and instead make them from botanical sources. The products will still technically be plastic, but instead of being made from fossil fuels, they are made from biological material such as bushes, tress and leaves. The most common “green” plastic material is coming from sugar cane, and provides a soft and durable type of plastic.
Tim Brooks, senior director for Environmental Sustainability at LEGO promises that the Lego bricks will be of the same quality as the previous toys that were made from regular plastic, and that neither children or parents will notice any difference.
This green plastic is obviously a lot more expensive to produce, so it’s great to see that some companies actually prefer to make less money in favor of reducing their carbon footprint!
The Lego Group is taking the environment very seriously, and has already spend 1 billion Danish crowns, or about $135 million in order to reduce their carbon footprint. The company does already run entirely on renewable energy, so it’s safe to say that they are doing their best to create a better future.
It almost looks like Minecraft, but it is indeed a big display of Rio de Janeiro recreated in Lego. Image by Afmoura, posted with the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Better, but far from ideal
Going from “dirty plastic” to “green plastic” made from botanical sources is very great, and certainly reduces the emission that goes up to the atmosphere and causes the climate change, but it’s still not a very good solution.
Despite being green, the plastic still has a lot of the issues that we have with regular plastic, such as plastic pollution. It still takes just as long to break down the plastic in nature or in the ocean, so you would still need to recycle it if you don’t want to harm the environment.
Another thing to keep in mind is that only 1 – 2 % of the bricks made by Lego will be made by this new green plastic. However, they have said that they hope to be using 100 % sustainable plastic by 2030, and the sets released this year is only the beginning. So right now it will not make a huge impact, but they have promised to improve annually, so let’s hope the project goes according to plan!
A final “problem” with this plastic is that it’s made from sugar cane, which might sound great, but a growing sugar cane industry is also one of the reasons why the Amazon rainforest is getting deforested.
A sugar cane field. Image by Bitancortmaria, posted with the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
So, this new green plastic is far from perfect, but it’s a great start!
### Want to learn more about the chemistry and attributions of these plastic bricks? See the comments for more!
Will we see more green plastic in the future?
As I mentioned, plastic is both harmful for the environment when produces, as well as when it is used as pollution (when not recycled), so changing from fossil fuel based plastic into bioplastic is a huge improvement. I hope to see more companies follow the example set by Lego in the future, because I know for sure that I will be much more likely to buy these sustainable sets than the “dirty” Lego sets in a few years when my son wants to play with Lego.
Thanks for reading
I am really happy that Lego is doing this change, and I wish them the best of luck. In contrast to some other people I am not 100 % sold on the idea that this green plastic is the best solution for all our plastic problems, but hey – it’s a lot better than the fossil fuel based plastic. Let’s cross our fingers that we are able to create a real bioplastic that breaks down easily in the environment, and that is also not crazy expensive at one point.
Anyway, I have a question for you guys! Do you care about this at all from a consumer perspective? I know we all want to stop the destruction of the environment, but does this make you more inclined to buy Lego to your family or friends’ children?
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