LEGO makes a non-ABS prototype brick

[anothergol]

Still funny that we throw plastic ALL the time, a lot, way too much, but if there's one thing we don't throw, it's Lego. I know they do this for their image, but no one has asked for biodegradable Lego.
Ideally, it'd be degradable, but only when you want to (like, dissolvable in something natural), and I can't imagine people getting their Lego to be degraded or recycled.
How does the "biodegradable" brick knows it's in a (..non-biodegradable) plastic bag inside a kid's room, or inside a cliff of trash?

Ok I'm sure Lego is thrown all the time, but it shouldn't be, it's pretty much the only toy (with Playmobil maybe) that can be passed to other generations.

Edited April 28, 2017 by anothergol

[Lyichir]

2 hours ago, anothergol said:

Still funny that we throw plastic ALL the time, a lot, way too much, but if there's one thing we don't throw, it's Lego. I know they do this for their image, but no one has asked for biodegradable Lego.
Ideally, it'd be degradable, but only when you want to (like, dissolvable in something natural), and I can't imagine people getting their Lego to be degraded or recycled.
How does the "biodegradable" brick knows it's in a (..non-biodegradable) plastic bag inside a kid's room, or inside a cliff of trash?

Ok I'm sure Lego is thrown all the time, but it shouldn't be, it's pretty much the only toy (with Playmobil maybe) that can be passed to other generations.

Hence why, as I said earlier in the topic, there's no indication that biodegradable bricks are even what Lego is looking for.

Most people jump to that conclusion when they read this news, even though there are plenty of other, more practical ways to make Lego "greener", most of which relate to the supply chain. Lego has already made a number of changes in that process (making boxes smaller so that more sets can be shipped with less environmental impact, using more cardboard and less plastic in packaging that is more likely than the set itself to be disposed of, increasing the use of renewable energy in their factories and other facilities, and financing environmental projects to offset their carbon footprint). But until Lego can do something about their reliance on fossil fuels as a raw material for the bricks themselves, that leaves a hard limit on how much they can reduce their environmental impact. That's a big part of why they are investing in the search for alternatives. Probably not the only reason—there are plenty of other, less selfless reasons to lessen reliance on oil, such as the inevitable scarcity of fossil fuels and the tendency for oil prices to become less stable when conflict arises in major oil-producing countries. But biodegradability probably isn't high on the list of why Lego is researching alternative materials.

[anothergol]

7 hours ago, Lyichir said:

Hence why, as I said earlier in the topic, there's no indication that biodegradable bricks are even what Lego is looking for.

Most people jump to that conclusion when they read this news, even though there are plenty of other, more practical ways to make Lego "greener", most of which relate to the supply chain. Lego has already made a number of changes in that process (making boxes smaller so that more sets can be shipped with less environmental impact, using more cardboard and less plastic in packaging that is more likely than the set itself to be disposed of, increasing the use of renewable energy in their factories and other facilities, and financing environmental projects to offset their carbon footprint). But until Lego can do something about their reliance on fossil fuels as a raw material for the bricks themselves, that leaves a hard limit on how much they can reduce their environmental impact. That's a big part of why they are investing in the search for alternatives. Probably not the only reason—there are plenty of other, less selfless reasons to lessen reliance on oil, such as the inevitable scarcity of fossil fuels and the tendency for oil prices to become less stable when conflict arises in major oil-producing countries. But biodegradability probably isn't high on the list of why Lego is researching alternative materials.

I can't imagine Lego bragging about the size of boxes, though, as it's not even the result of research, it's purely marketing that was abusing that.
Also, cardboard is renewable, while they still put small plastic bags of parts into larger ones, that alone isn't really useful. Numbered bags, ok, but those small ones.. personally when I open them I mix them with the rest.
Are those bags even made of recycled plastic? If not, they can start here.

Lego could even do without bags, actually. Instead of numbered bags, make (Ideas-style) boxes trays, all the parts already in the right numbered tray. There, you open the box, it's ready in trays and you can start building. It'd be easier to steal from sets in shops but hey, there are ways to make that more difficult.

I'm sure that the volume of plastic in those bags is small compared to the actual parts.. but it's more the surface that matters, it's plastic bags that end up in birds & fish.

Edited April 29, 2017 by anothergol

[Rotundus]

What it sounds like to me is that our favorite interlocking brick is going to cost us a bit more to purchase no matter what flavor we get out of the deal. 

[Trekkie99]

Its funny how so many people confuse environmentaly friendly with biodegradable! I guess you could blame pop culture and TV.

[Foxw]

On 4/29/2017 at 4:23 AM, Rotundus said:

What it sounds like to me is that our favorite interlocking brick is going to cost us a bit more to purchase no matter what flavor we get out of the deal. 

Actually Rotundus, it might result in the opposite actually.  the single current volatile cost lego has in thier production is petro cost (for reasons many have already shared.)

 

I know at my workplace we switched one of our product lines from plasticed cardboard containers to a totally recycled pulp based packing and once the conversion had been in place for a bit, cost savings was huge and allowed us to market and keep the price to consumer at a much lower point then if we hadn't, (before that every major oil price spike generally wound up adding a bit more to end price).

my point being if the end result is actually more cost friendly, a good solid upstanding company like LEGO will pass some of that cost savings onto it's consumers via reduction in pricing.  And going "Bio" doesn't have to me more expensive, or why they are likely looking at all current and up and coming technologies as they've given themselves 13 years to pull this off.

[Phoxtane]

I'm sure there's various complex processes that take an input of carbon feedstock (wheat, in this example) and can turn them into simple hydrocarbons. If the process is fancy enough, I bet you can get all of the component materials for ABS plastic from wheat!

I'd think that using an algae-based process would be cheaper and easier though, since the algae do a good portion of the work for you by producing an oil straightaway, as opposed to synthesizing the oil from a carbon feedstock (wheat).

[JGW3000]

Making plastic from a food source is just wrong.  Making plastic or other chemicals from food or plant waste; however, is feasible, although manure gas, anaerobic or digester biogas, etc.  is a better approach.  Use of algae is extremely inefficient, as algae are slow growing, there is a need to maintain an invariant culture, and then there is the problem of separating oils from water and biological matter.  Consider the tremendous volumes of chemicals produced worldwide - ten's of millions of metric tons annually.

The issue is not availability of renewable or 'green' starting materials, the issue is the energy cost in transforming these starting materials, first into relatively pure and clean chemical intermediates, and then into something that looks like or is ABS plastic.  (We are working on it, though - primarily using wind and solar power to convert CO2 and CH4 into chemical intermediates - both CO2 and CH4 are widely available from both fossil and renewable resources).  It will just be a matter of R&D and time to get to the technology level where renewable-sourced materials are cost- and energy-competitive with their petroleum-sources equivalents.  At the rate of progress, this can happen in as little as 5 years, but 20 or so is more likely.

[mocbuild101]

9 hours ago, JGW3000 said:

Making plastic from a food source is just wrong.  Making plastic or other chemicals from food or plant waste; however, is feasible, although manure gas, anaerobic or digester biogas, etc.  is a better approach.  Use of algae is extremely inefficient, as algae are slow growing, there is a need to maintain an invariant culture, and then there is the problem of separating oils from water and biological matter.  Consider the tremendous volumes of chemicals produced worldwide - ten's of millions of metric tons annually.

Agreed!

[Digger of Bricks]

Looks like our first plant-based foliage parts will be made available in a "gift-with-purchase" set for purchases over US $35 come this August:

 

[Grover]

From what I read, those are made of the much more flexible polyethylene.  Makes sense, because the plants have always been flexible, but I'm curious if they're going to try and replace the ABS with PE as well.  I believe that some of the competitor brands use PE or other polymers, and this leads to problems with tolerance and strength.  Hopefully they'll only try and source the ABS starting materials from a more environmentally friendly source and not try to change away from ABS itself.

[Lyichir]

21 hours ago, Grover said:

From what I read, those are made of the much more flexible polyethylene.  Makes sense, because the plants have always been flexible, but I'm curious if they're going to try and replace the ABS with PE as well.  I believe that some of the competitor brands use PE or other polymers, and this leads to problems with tolerance and strength.  Hopefully they'll only try and source the ABS starting materials from a more environmentally friendly source and not try to change away from ABS itself.

I doubt there's any plans to change over all parts to polyethylene. The whole point of using polyethylene in the first place is that the parts in question already used it, so it wouldn't have any negative impacts on quality (the fact that many of the parts in question were plant parts was a nice thematic bonus). ABS isn't going away, at least not until a bioplastic version comes along that performs equivalently by most measures of quality.

[Digger of Bricks]

For those interested, here's a review of this upcoming "gift-with-purchase" promotion, preceded by an overlook of Lego's past and currently utilized materials:

New Elementary - SUSTAINABLE LEGO® ELEMENTS: 40320 PLANTS FROM PLANTS 

[JopieK]

Here is a promotional video: