The Lego Group, Danish toy Production Company, best known for the manufacture of Lego-brand toys, consisting mostly of interlocking plastic bricks has announced plans to package its products in recyclable paper rather than single-use plastic. The Danish toymaker said it will start making the switch next year and expects plastic bags to be completely phased out in the next five years. The bags are used to hold loose bricks in boxed sets.
“We receive lots of letters from children asking why we still use single-use plastic in our boxes, which inspired us to begin to make this change,” said Tim Brooks, vice president of environmental responsibility at LEGO. “This is part of our ambition to make all our packaging sustainable by the end of 2025,” he added. The toymaker said it was already looking to expand the use of so-called “bio-bricks” made of sugar cane, which currently makes up 2% of its pieces. It said it was also researching other alternative materials to plastic and designing toys that would teach kids “sustainability through play.”
Lego, as well as other big brands, have been looking for ways to cut plastic use in order to please customers increasingly worried about how their purchases impact the environment. Monopoly maker Hasbro, for example, has also announced plans to eliminate plastics in its packaging. But for many companies, suitable replacements are hard to find. For example, Nestlé, which used 1.5 million metric tons of plastic packaging last year, said in January that it plans to pay more for recycled material in order to encourage new suppliers to enter the market for used plastics that are suitable for food packaging.
Finding environmental friendly alternatives to plastic, which is a major polluter of oceans and water sources, is vital way to tackle the world’s climate emergency because it will help address greenhouse gas emissions from the production of goods we use every day, such as cars, clothes and food. A study in the journal Science published in July found that even if the world cut plastic pollution 80% by 2040, there would still be about 710 million metric tons of plastic waste contaminating the environment.
