Lego axes plan to make bricks from recycled bottles | Hacker News Reader

Lego axes plan to make bricks from recycled bottles

bbc.com

53 pointsadrian_mrd65 comments

They've undoubtedly discovered the hard way just how difficult and expensive it is to achieve any sort of consistent product with recycled plastic.

You can produce "something" --- but it will usually be a blackish/gray mess that is hard to re-color with variable viscosity, melting point and other properties that make it hard to mold in mass --- and the result probably won't look like something that should end up in your kid's mouth.

There are some valid use cases for recycled plastics but kid's toys may not be one of them.

What LEGO brick colors can be made with unbleached biocomposites ("bioplastics") from e.g. soy, hemp, and algae?

/? lego hemp plastic: https://www.google.com/search?q=lego+hemp+plastic

/? stronger and lighter than steel and aluminum [hemp] https://www.google.com/search?q=Stronger+and+lighter+than+st...

And also TIL about /? 2DPA-1 melamine waterproof coating: https://www.google.com/search?q=2DPA-1

Though TBH layers of recycled paper pulp and phenolic resin might work; https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36857929 :

> RichLite, Paperlite, and Paperstone make recycled paper outdoor waterproof vert ramps, countertops, siding, and flooring; but not yet roofing FWIU?

... and they're sandable and buffable.

Also FWIU, Hemp Wood is made with a sustainable (organic?) binder (in currently still one factory in KY, USA), which is a different process than High Pressure Injection Molding or 3d printing with organic filament.

Interlocking hempcrete blocks by: JustBiofiber https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=just+biofiber

"Eco-Friendly Construction Breakthrough: Lego-like Hempcrete Blocks That Don't Require Framing https://www.core77.com/posts/91260/Eco-Friendly-Construction... :

> The benefits of the hempcrete bricks is that they're lightweight (easier to transport), fireproof, serve as natural insulators that also regulate moisture, and they're eco-friendly--hemp plants lock up C02 as they grow. [Carbon sequestion, Nitrogen fixation]

> The downside of hempcrete bricks is that they were not load-bearing, and could only be installed with a framed structure, as shown below. [...]

> However, Canadian company JustBioFiber has managed to eliminate that downside, while also adding an innovation that makes the bricks even easier to assemble into a structure. What they've done is to integrate a proprietary structure hidden within each brick itself, so that they can actually function as load-bearing. "We can currently build 3-4 story buildings, with each project having 3rd party structural engineering signoff," the company claims.

Rounded radial block dimensions would be helpful; round homes (and siloes) minimize wind shearing force.

LEGO Bricktales does 3D CAD with Design Verification with Simulation; build a bridge and test it out, journey to other worlds, etc. https://www.google.com/search?q=lego+bricktales

Verification and validation > Categories, Aspects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verification_and_validation#Ca...

"Algae-based blocks could make for a more sustainable building" (2023) but what about LEGOs? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37693225

I noticed how prominently Apple advertised their recycled plastic watch bands and whatnot at their last announcement. That's great and all, but the thing that rubbed me the wrong way is that some of those products were made to look recycled, like the watch bands with the little color flakes, where the speaker implied that these flakes have random because they are the original color of the recycled plastic.

I have two issue with that.

First, someone would have to work very hard convince me that recycled plastic or not, those flakes aren't specifically tinted to look exactly the way Apple wants them to.

Second, and that's the important one, as soon as recycling becomes a fashion statement, the question about effectiveness begins to evaporate. Or more accurately, impossible to bring up without giving off the impression that one is against improving the environment. As soon as the important part becomes that things "look recycled", that's what the market will deliver, whether the thing is actually recycled in a way that provides benefit or not.

And who knows if the environmentally best recycling methods won't soon actually produce something that looks "cleaner" and thus looks "worse for the environment" than some faux recycled bullshit product.

Acer did the same thing with their "recycled" laptop - I have to ask the same question about how much effort and production process goes into getting that exact fleck effect and completely agree with you, and I feel like companies are still putting in more effort to market about their "green" activities than actual practice.

Environmentalism and social activism etc. have been a commodified for a long time now. You don't just buy coffee at Starbucks, along with your coffee you also get the nice feeling that you are supporting the poor farmers in South America and that your recycled cup and paper straws are helping the environment.

The relationship between you and the people being born deformed in those countries smothered with pollution or being deforested has been neatly disguised behind a paper cup or a watch strap. It's no longer a relationship between people but a relationship between things.

I find it very manipulative personally.

It's sad, but to be fair it's "reduce reuse recycle" and there's no toy more reusable than Lego.

I wonder where all the bricks go. I still have the lego bricks my parents got for my older sister which I inherited. It’s a huge box, most of it was passed down to our family from other families .

My daughter has already a massive brick collection just because of the sets she was presented with.

By now she very child should have no need anymore to buy Lego bricks so many should be in circulation. I just fear they are being thrown away.

Don't worry, my kid is buying them by the kilo at yard sales :)

There's a huge secondary market but it certainly could be bigger. I wonder if Lego themselves shouldn't advertise more how to get rid of old bricks.

Lego bricks are very cheap to manufacture. The main cost is R&D and licensing. Lego themselves are probably better off financially having a recycling program where the bricks are melted down to make park benches, and then making brand new bricks.

That will cost less than cleaning, sorting and QA-ing recycled bricks.

Old bricks keep value very well to the tune of $0.10c/piece.

You can get a park bench for less than 2k [1]

A park bench made of old legos would only make sense where it was made with 20k pieces or fewer. I would guestimate a park bench of recycled Lego would ba a 50k opportunity cost

[1] https://www.belson.com/Parkview-Style-Steel-Park-Benches-wit...

> Old bricks keep value very well to the tune of $0.10c/piece.

True, but to the Lego company themselves, new bricks perhaps cost only $0.005 per piece, and old bricks probably are worth far less.

To Lego themselves, they're not worth much, but to collectors they will be. But that involves a lot of labor involving sorting, cleaning, organizing, order picking and shipping, the question there is whether Lego is willing to do that or if they leave it up to hobbyists.

Nobody throws away Lego bricks, there is huge market, you can sell them in various ways (by kilograms, by pieces).

People do try to throw them away. A good chunk of my kids' lego collection is a mixed selection of blocks we found in a skip.

https://lego.com/replay :

> Q: Do I need to clean my bricks before I donate?

> A: Thank you for the offer but no, you don’t. Give Back Box will be sorting and cleaning the bricks before donation. To help them in their job, you can try to remove obviously damaged or disfigured bricks from your donation.

I got 75% of a 7745 train, a ton of rails, a traffic light and assorted mystery trainish blocks from a bag that someone rescued from a dumpster. Unfortunately, they could carry only 1 of the 2 bags in the dumpster. I got it very cheaply, as they didn't think they would get much money from it. A lot of the rails were snapped. Some have white paint.

I restored it, but my heart wept for the previous owner.

The market just grew a lot in the past decades (adult fans in particular, but on all fronts). Also, Lego will inevitably get thrown away, but a lot of it resides in boxes in attics etc. stored for decades for the next generation (my four year old is busy laying out his claim on my stash at his grandparents house and arranging for its transfer to him).

I reckon archeologists will be digging them up in centuries to come.

The whole point of LEGO bricks is to act as a carbon sink for the foreseeable future. The whole construction toys angle is just a ruse.

I have thousands of pounds of carbon sink in my basement!

It is more nefarious than that

https://babylonbee.com/news/lego-introduces-new-sharper-bric...

These are depopulation bricks.

Christian conspiracy theories need not apply.

A very, very expensive carbon sink..

> By now she very child should have no need anymore to buy Lego bricks so many should be in circulation.

It might not be so much of an issue for legos, but but I've read you should not give vintage toys to kids, because past manufacturing process do not meet modern standards.

For instance: vintage yellow megablocks have high levels of heavy metals (https://tamararubin.com/2020/12/how-old-are-your-childs-toys...). I threw away some of those my wife got at a consignment sale, because I could not tell when they were made.

> I just fear they are being thrown away.

They are being thrown away.

It's less reusable than in the past due to the sheer variety of pieces and colours. It's not just rectangular bricks, windows, doors and glasses anymore. The majority of bricks are small, angled, curved, sloped pieces for very specific applications. It allows impressively finished models with a huge piece count, but the genericity of parts for "general construction" just isn't there.

And for this reason I think that LEGO actually kind of sucks now compared to when I was a kid. I think it's far more difficult for my kids to just start building something because all the bricks that they get from the LEGO sets are special. At one point we sat down and separated out all the "standard" bricks from the special ones and put them in a separate container and that has made them more interested in starting creative builds on their own.

I think LEGO's financial crisis in the late 90's and early 00's ended when they started making more themed bricks, especially licensed themes such as Star Wars. And this is the problem: In order for LEGO to be profitable they need to keep producing novelty sets rather than sets with standard bricks, and that is fundamentally at odds with being sustainable

I can't find the source for where I read this, but I thought a large part of their financial crisis was because they were designing lots of sets with custom bricks that weren't reused in other sets, which inflated manufacturing costs, and now they've gone back to reusing bricks between sets heavily. Maybe you have lots of bricks from that period? Or what exactly do you mean by "standard"? I've seen some pretty clever uses for the same brick in different sets where the brick might not be considered "standard" by you.

All military caltrops can be replace by Lego. And, Ukraine would win with that kind of area denial weapon and get hauled before The Hague for war crimes.

These are Lego compatible bricks made from wood, hugely more expensive, but an interesting idea:

https://www.kinderspel.net/en/wooden-bricks-compatible-with-...

Given the headline I thought it was going to be a "wow Lego sure does care about quality" story, but it's actually a "recycled plastics don't actually reduce emissions" story.

Whenever people of the future look back on this era, I've gotta think there's going to be a chapter about how much plastic was embraced on the false premise that its recyclability made it an eco-friendly option.

Thermal depolymerization of plastic closes the loop provided you can pay the energy cost renewably though - just break it all the way down to monomer units, at which point you can distill and repolymerize as though it's a virgin material.

You also can't really meaningfully recycle glass, for pretty much the same reasons.

> it's actually a "recycled plastics don't actually reduce emissions" story

Didn't realize that was the goal, I thought it was to reduce plastic waste in the environment

... yeah I don't think emissions was the point. They aren't biodegradable so the point is to not have it sitting in a landfill or worse, just floating around in public areas, oceans, etc.

> I thought it was to reduce plastic waste in the environment

Recycling plastic requires cleaning it, which uses lots of water and introduces a path for microplastics to enter the environment. Landfills are pretty good at containing waste. I'm not convinced that recycling is better.

This is where I'm at, at the moment; instead of burning it, melting it down etc, why not neatly pack it and sequester it in a water isolated landfill? (No water should trickle through the plastic and end up in the soil, I mean by that).

Plastic is already collected, sorted and bundled for recyling in a lot of places.

Then one of three things will happen. One, the sequestered plastic will just sit there for eternity, eventually breaking down into... something, some kind of hydrocarbon mass I suppose. Two, future technology finds a way to reuse plastic as a resource, but with better results than current-day tech. Or three, they deploy a plastic-eating bacteria or enzyme that processes the plastic back down to raw somethings in the span of years instead of hundreds.

(I don't know what plastic breaks down to, either assisted or naturally. I'm afraid to ask. But as long as it's sequestered it should be fine)

But yeah. Landfill and storage is probably better than burning or using more energy to create a subpar product.

I applaud Lego for caring about actual impact as opposed to virtue-signalling. A lesser company would have gone ahead for greenwashing brownie points and hidden the findings.

I wonder how many of the claims behind "recycled plastic" end up using more energy and pollute more than just using crude.

Recycling glass is a similar deception. It aimply isn't often done due to the energy needed. It is used as filler un building materials sometimes. Aluminum is almost always recycled, but for food it usually requires plastic linings which aren't ideal. Deposits for glass containers seem like a good idea to me if anyone would bother with it. Make nonw food contacting stuff out of aluminium. Legos even, those would be amazing.

Yes. You can tell aluminium is worth recycling because they will pay you for it.

Plastic and glass are marginal at best.

This deception you are speaking of is alive and well in Germany

You sure about that? Beer bottles aren't shattered and melted, they're just cleaned and reused. Altglas is remelted but according to the environmental office saves 10% of energy and of course 100% of raw materials[1]. If they're lying that's one thing but you merely call out deception which is an intentionsal skewing, not outright contradiction, of the truth, which is evidently not the case here.

[1] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/ressourcen-abfall/verwe...

The bottles are being recycled, how is that a deception?

First off, glass will be reused; I dunno about the states, but in Europe there's a huge industry of paying a deposit when you buy something, getting it back when you hand it in, and the glassware gets cleaned and reused. Mainly for beer though, I think the scheme should be extended to other things as well.

Second, recycling is more energy efficient than making new glass; from Wikipedia, "Soda lime glass from virgin raw materials theoretically requires approximately 2.671 GJ/tonne compared to 1.886 GJ/tonne to melt 100% glass cullet." (cullet is just existing glass). However, it's usually mixed in with raw materials to make new glass, which reduces the energy needed: "As a general rule, every 10% increase in cullet usage results in an energy savings of 2–3% in the melting process, with a theoretical maximum potential of 30% energy saving.[5] Every metric ton (1,000 kg) of waste glass recycled into new items saves 315 kilograms (694 lb) of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere during the manufacture of new glass.[6]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_recycling

TL;DR: Recycling of existing and well-known reusables (glass, aluminium, steel) uses a lot less energy than making new. This isn't the case for plastic yet though, as it turns out.

It used to be that in Sweden 33cl sodas were in glass bottles that were in the same wash/reuse scheme, as well as 1.5l hard PET bottles. You could tell how old a bottle was by how scratched up it was. That was replaced by 0.5l recyclable PET bottles with the rationalization was that transporting the heaver bottles was worse than recycling them due to truck emissions. I always suspected it was a lie by Coca-Cola so they could use custom shaped bottles and less generic designs. And even if it was true, I wonder how EV trucks change that equation.

Of course it uses more energy, you have to recycle it instead of just form it. I thought the goal was to reduce waste and pollution

That's not a given. You don't have to recreate it from oil but instead put it in a new shape. I don't know whether that's better (separately from the trash problem), but it's not necessarily better to create new than to reshape old.

PET is just not a good material for brick toys. They deform quite easily and that goes against LEGO brand. I wonder why they didn’t use HDPE which Green Toys utilizes. Perhaps not enough recycled materials for LEGO scale.

HDPE is an even worse choice.

The basic brick uses ABS.

If long-term durability were a concern, ASA might be a better choice but it costs 50% more.

Changing it to be something else would just cheapen LEGO to something that wouldn't permit intergenerational inheritance.

This is one of those cases where I feel recyclability shouldn't be a huge concern: LEGO bricks are viable for several decades (so far) and they should generally not ever need to go to a landfill.

This is a case where reusing is a far better premise: LEGO could invest in initatives to return LEGOs for redistribution to younger generations at a discount or credit.

EDIT: Heh, another commenter shared a link, LEGO does indeed have such a program, called Replay.

Counterpoint: They make a lot of new plastic, which ends up in the cycle one way or another. If they can make some of that out of existing plastic, in theory less new plastic needs to be made (in practice it won't stop), and plastic stays out of landfills and incinerators for a bit longer.

I think an important question is if the durability suffers. Reuse is better than recyclability. If they had bricks made of recyclable plastic but they only lasted ten years, I would argue that was worse.

We should push as much as possible for durable, repairable products, and then focus on getting those products removed from the waste stream.

Imagine if LEGO was able to incorporate bricks returned to them from Replay like programs into brand new sets. A lot of new sets have unique pieces but they still use a lot of traditional parts, not to mention basic sets like LEGO Creator.

I guess the plan has been bricked.

It hit a wall like a ton of ...

Recycling plastic doesn;t work. The best we can do is "downcycle"

Recycling is very convenient for the plastic industry to shift the responsibility to the consumer.

Unless you get China and India on board this whole "emission reduction" feels like a giant theater.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-...

Since 2006 the US reduced emissions by 1B tonnes and China added 5

How much of the increase in Indian and Chinese emissions is accounted for by increased manufacturing of products being sent to the US?

Stop buying from them then ?

Oh wait you can't because we sacrificed most of our industries in the west

You can implement a carbon tax/tariff upon import from those economies if they are unwilling to sacrifice some of their rapid growth for the common good like the west is doing.

Much of that growth comes from the West exporting manufacturing to low cost countries to reduce costs. This of course enriches the rich and the powerful in the west by the 100%+ margins they are able to command by the above while also reducing costs for consumers in the West at the same time.

So what you really need is broad support for higher prices and possibly leadership change in the west.

Eventually emerging economies will switch to domestic consumption as the wealth driver but they're (especially China) is already well ahead on renewables as they neither produce oil, not have the military muscle just now to ensure uninterrupted supplies from elsewhere - so much so that anti dumping duties have been implemented or threatened on import of renewables from China which slows down renewables switch in the West, increases its costs and achieves the opposite of the sacrifice you mention.

So the situation is a lot more complicated :-)

It is imperative to make progress. The more progress we make the more we can pressure the rest of the world. This is true for all countries.

There is theater around the environment and individual and collection action, but reducing carbon release into the atmosphere is imperative. We should not strive for net zero. We should strive for net -10x.

The only fair measure is per capita and both of those countries are still producing way less CO2 per person. Also China is now doing a sizeable proportion of your manufacturing.. shouldn't those emissions count against Americans?

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