Lego launches tyres made with recycled materials

Iranpolymer/Baspar As Lego continues its search for sustainable alternatives to virgin plastic, the Danish toy maker has launched tyres made from recycled materials sourced from old fishing nets, ropes, and engine oil.

The material is a blend of styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene created by mechanically recycling discarded ropes and nets from ocean vessels and combining them with recycled engine oil.

The new tyres will initially be used in seven Lego tyre pieces, each containing at least 30% recycled content.

The new tyres have already started appearing in Lego sets and the company expects to feature them in approximately 120 different sets by the end of 2025. It also plans to explore ways to expand recycled content across more tyre styles in the near future.

“This is an exciting step in our ambition to make Lego products more sustainable and reduce our dependence on virgin fossil fuels,” said Lego’s Chief Sustainability Officer Annette Stube. “Over the past five years, we have invested significant time in developing and testing this new recycled material to ensure it meets our high standards for quality, safety, and durability. The tyres are just one of many options we’re working on to make our products more sustainable and it’s encouraging to see something this innovative making it into our sets.”

Lego has pledged to invest $1.4 billion in the four years through 2025 on sustainability.

In 2023, 18% of all resin the Danish toy maker purchased was ISCC Plus or RSB certified according to mass balance principles, which translates into an estimated average of 12% of renewable-attributed sources. Lego plans to significantly increase its use of mass balance materials going forward.

In 2021, Lego announced it was testing a prototype brick made with rPET, building on a 2015 pledge to invest on more sustainable replacements for acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), which it uses in about 80% of its bricks.

The world’s largest toy maker ditched the plans in 2023, saying rPET would have required significant changes to its manufacturing equipment and therefore would have led to higher carbon emissions over the product’s lifetime.

After that setback, the company said it learnt that there isn’t one unique solution to the challenges it faces but rather a whole range.

One of its latest solutions is the launch of a new material called arMABS. It is produced using recycled artificial marble, commonly found in kitchen worktops, and from this year it will be used in over 500 different LEGO elements, including all its transparent elements such as light sabres, windscreens, and windows.

The company is also working on a new material ePOM, an acetal resin made from renewable energy and biogenic CO2, the result of an agreement signed in 2023 between European Energy and Novo Nordisk. Lego plans to introduce the material is elements such as its wheel axes in the near future.

Since 2018, Lego has been using bio-PE made using Brazilian sugarcane for certain elements such as mini figure accessories and botanical pieces.

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