LEGO has marked a sustainable milestone: their new prototype is made from plastic recycled from discarded PET bottles, a material that meets the company’s strict quality and safety requirements.
A team of over 150 people is working to find sustainable solutions for creating LEGO products. In the past three years, scientists and engineers have tested over 250 variations of PET materials and hundreds of other plastic formulations. The result is a prototype, which meets several quality, safety, and play requirements. The patent-pending material formulation increases the durability of the recycled PET plastic to make it strong enough for LEGO bricks. The innovative process uses a bespoke compounding technology to combine the recycled PET with strengthening additives.
Still, it will take some time before the LEGO bricks made from recycled plastic hit the stores. Their team will continue the development and testing of the formulation so they can move into the phase of test production, which is expected to take a year.
Source: Designboom