Lego does not use recycled building blocks made from bottles

However, the toy manufacturer is sticking to its goal of producing building blocks from sustainable materials by 2032. By 2025, more than €1.1 billion is expected to flow into sustainability initiatives.

toEgo says goodbye to its plan to make building blocks from recycled PET bottles. After several years of testing, the toy company from Billund, Denmark, decided not to pursue this project any further. This was announced by a spokesman for the Lego Group on Monday in Scandinavia. The Financial Times newspaper reported earlier.

Most plastics are based on crude oil, including the materials used in Lego bricks. According to the spokesman, the company is not abandoning its efforts to find oil-free materials for products: Lego remains committed to producing building blocks from sustainable materials by 2032.

In June 2021, Lego presented the prototype of a building block that was made from PET plastic from discarded bottles and thus met the company’s quality and safety requirements. This prototype now remains in a drawer. According to Lego, the extra steps in the production process mean the material does not reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the building blocks.

Recycled PET is just one of hundreds of different sustainable materials Lego has tested, Billund said. The group is currently testing and developing a number of alternative materials, including other recyclable plastics and those from other sources such as e-methanol. According to the company, LEGO plans to invest more than $1.2 billion (1.1 billion euros) in sustainability initiatives by 2025.