Lego - the Largest Tyre Manufacturer in the World | Hacker News Reader

Lego - the Largest Tyre Manufacturer in the World

en.wikipedia.org

67 pointsT-zex31 comments

Note that this is ranked by units produced, and the Lego tires are for their toy kits. It's kind of silly to compare their production against Michelin, Bridgestone, et al.

An interesting list would be tyre manufacturers by total load bearing capacity produced. For example, if a manufacturer makes 500 tyres, each of which can support 1000kg, they get a score of 500 x 1000 = 500000. It'd be a cool list because it might throw up some unexpected results, due to tyres for odd applications.

The next three by units (Bridgestone, Michelin, Goodyear) all do commercial/industrial/aviation, I think Goodyear falls out a bit at the top end. 400 tonne trucks use Bridgestone/Michelin, the Airbus A380 uses Bridgestone, for what it's worth.

Would be cool to see it ranked like that though.

The real question is if Lego produces more blocks than a brickyard. Or people than a... maternity ward?

Nope, you're right. It is kind of silly although maybe Lego somehow uses it as a point of advertising pride.

Why is nobody talking about the horrifying impact that this is having on the environment? All of these plastic pieces will end up in the trash. In other words, in our environment. That doesn't even take into account the pollution from the manufacturing process. And we call this progress or innovation? Please stop making this garbage.

Among the reasons are that the Lego Group is doing their best to prevent such impact. 88%* of the waste plastic from the production. Their products, in sharp contrast to all other toys, can be assembled and disassembled ad infinitum, they can easily be combined with all other Lego products and the high-durability means that Lego is more often resold or donated rather than disposed.

On the other hand, do you have any examples of this "horrifying impact"?

* I remember being told it was a 99% figure, but the Group's website [0] lists 88%

[0] http://aboutus.lego.com/en/sustainability/the-topics-we-work...

Trash goes into landfills, not the environment. It will be processed and recycled in the future, by robots.

And the lighter elements of landfills end up being washed out into the ocean. That's how we got the great plastic gyres in the pacific.

Landfills are the environment. If you don't believe me I encourage you to live next to one.

If you know of someone throwing lego in the trash, please point me in their direction!

LEGOs don't end up in a landfill. From my observations, they all end up under my couch cushions.

As plastic trinkets go, at least Legos are much more durable and reusable than most toys.

Just out of curiosity, in what countries is it "Tyre"? Can any HNer's fill me in?

It's "tire" in Canada, but our Commonwealth status has stopped meaning anything at all. We owe more to our American cultural ties than to our historical monarchy and our tendency towards UK English.

Source: my entire life and, I suppose, http://canadiantire.ca

UK -- or at least it used to be (wouldn't be surprised if more people were using the american form now).

Any country that uses British spelling for things.

That really depends, because "British spelling" isn't an all-or-nothing thing -- many of the Commonwealth countries show broad variation in how much they adhere to the traditional UK spellings.

Thus, for example, Australia has a Labor party, not a Labour party (while neighbor New Zealand does have a Labour party), and typically sends people to jail instead of to gaol. Canada usually has tires instead of tyres, and Canadians realize things instead of realising them.

The ALP (Australian Labor Party) changed the spelling of their name deliberately in 1912 order to distinguish it from the general labour movement and also to make them appear more progressive and modern by using the American spelling.

More information on Australian spelling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_English#Spelling

It's probably worth noting that "gaol" hasn't been common in British English for some time. A search of the BBC news site reveals "jail" being used almost daily while "gaol" is only used to refer to historical buildings which are now closed.

Well, on etymologic grounds, "gaol" is closer to French (goale, while the pronunciation is different) than the Old English equivalent (gaylle, gaille, gaile) - so jail is somewhat closer to the Old English, in form and pronunciation.

Not sure about NZ & Oz but you would never see it written "tyre" in Canada and I bet most Canadian's would have no idea "tyre" was an alternative spelling for tire.

In Australia it's spelled "tire" as far as I know. I've never really seen the spelling "tyre" used here before, hence invalidating the claim that any country that relies on British spelling all use the same spellings for words.

Actually it is tyre in Australia.

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=tyre

Now here's a case where having points visible would help those not-in-the-know to see what those-who-are-in-the-know think of the he said/she said between DigitalSea and hartror above

Given you can't see points, hartror is correct, and here's a collection of tyre retailer names as evidence

Kmart Tyre & Auto Service

Welshpool Tyre Service

Berry's Tyres

Fremantle Tyrepower

Ian Diffen World of Tyres & Mufflers

West State Tyre Service

National Tyres

(you get the idea)

Two questions (and I'm not trying to be snarky or aggressive here!)

1) Are you Australian? (sub question, were you born Australian?)

2) What state/territory do you live in?

Because every state and territory I've lived in, it's been tyre. I've never seen tire used except by non-native speakers.

How long have you lived in Australia? I have never seen "tire" used here before.

I will openly admit in front of you all that I was wrong. I've lived in Australia all of my life, Queensland to be exact. I don't know what the hell I was thinking, I was almost convinced that it was spelled "tire" not "tyre" but you people are correct. No offence taken.

Tyre is English.

New Zealand, as we are a british colony.

it's tyre in ireland.

Now that is brilliant humor. So deadpan it survives in an encyclopedia entry :)

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