(This Sept. 24 story has been corrected to show that Lego has abandoned one specific oil-free brick development project, not all such efforts, in the headline and paragraph 1)
(Reuters) – Danish Toymaker Lego has abandoned its most high-profile effort to ditch oil-based plastics from its bricks after finding that its new material led to higher carbon emissions, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
Lego found that bricks made from recycled polyethylene terephthalate (RPET), would lead to higher carbon emissions.
“We tested hundreds and hundreds of materials. It’s just not been possible to find a material like that,” Lego Chief Executive Niels Christiansen told the Financial times.
A Lego spokesperson told Reuters that testing and development continued and that the company aimed to make the toys from sustainable materials by 2032.
The company had kicked off efforts in 2020 to replace its plastic bricks by sustainable materials. The difficulty was to find a material that would be environment friendly but give the same colour, shine and sound of an oil-based plastic bricks.
(Reporting by Shubhendu Deshmukh in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
