I know you come here for the politics, but sometimes I'm going to write about music, and other times I'm going to write about LEGO, the best toy in the world — unless going "green" ruins it. If you're an adult with kids or grandkids or you still like LEGO yourself, listen up.
"If at first, you don't succeed at saving the planet, try, try again," might be LEGO's new company motto as the Danish toymaker goes all in on renewable plastics — less than a year after they gave up on their experiments with trying to make bricks from different recycled materials.
CNN reported last September that LEGO had “spent years testing recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) as a more climate-friendly alternative to the acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS)” it usually uses. Fortunately, the sad results never made it out of the company's pristine labs.
One reason the company has opted not to make their bricks out of old bottles was that “the recycled plastic wasn’t as durable and safe as ABS and didn’t have the material’s ‘clutch power,’ which enables bricks to stick together and be pulled apart easily.” If you've ever bought knock-off brand LEGO — I have, with mixed results* — you know there's something special about the way the real bricks click and stick, yet still come apart with relative ease.
*About those knock-offs. Years ago, I bought my sons a Halo videogame-themed set made by MEGA. The MEGA bricks felt oily and unsubstantial and didn't stick together very well. A few years ago, my wife got me a LEGO-type kit of the USS Missouri battleship made by COBI, a Polish company. The COBI bricks feel much better than MEGA's but stick together too well. God help you if you ever need to take two bricks apart.
Adding insult to injury, a company spokesminifig [It was a human being, Steve, not a LEGO minifig —Editor] had to admit that "We found the [PET] material didn’t reduce carbon emissions.”
Nevertheless, the company is plowing forward with a new plan to replace the oil in its bricks entirely with renewable plastics by 2032. And, according to Fox News, it has already made deals "with major producers that can provide fossil-free materials for the long term." LEGO claims that it's on track to meet the 2032 deadline but admits that renewable resins are 70% more expensive than ABS.
They say they won't pass along their increased costs to consumers, and as a privately held company, they have no shareholders to answer to. It's their money, they can spend it however they like.
But what about the bricks? I have two thoughts about those.
First, while we certainly should reduce the amount of disposable plastics we use, LEGO is a silly place to start. One YouTube test I watched showed that bricks are good for more than 30,000 (!!!) clicks/unclicks. Your grandkids could give their LEGO to their grandkids.
The second is that consumers don't need to care what materials go into making a LEGO brick so long as the quality and the price remain the same. If LEGO's renewable resin bricks get thrown out after a few years because they don't last like the current bricks do, won't they generate more waste instead of less?
LEGO's real motto is "Only the best is good enough." I hope they don't sacrifice their best on the altar of environmentalism.
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P.S. Thank you once again for your VIP membership. Not only do you keep alternative conservative news alive but you help me indulge in my weird obsessions.
