
Lego Struggles to Find a Plant-Based Plastic That Clicks - lord_sudo
https://www.wsj.com/articles/lego-struggles-to-find-a-plant-based-plastic-that-clicks-11560331800?mod=rsswn
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cosmodisk
I appreciate the initiative, however even without it, Lego isn't something
that gets thrown away after a few months use,if at all.

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tonyedgecombe
My parents still have Lego from my childhood in the loft. The only parts that
have degraded are electrical.

I’m not sure what we will do with it when they pass, it has little or no
value.

Perhaps it would make sense to recycle it.

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jacquesm
> it has little or no value.

You are so wrong about that. Vintage sets go for many times their original
worth, and some parts are worth more than you'd think reasonable for a little
piece of plastic.

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folli
In original packaging maybe, but not after several kids have played with them
for years (and inevitably lost pieces)

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jacquesm
There's a cottage industry of people sorting those piles of lego and then
completing the sets from parts bought individually. It's not going to make you
millions but there are people that do this relatively successfully.

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jacquesm
The whole power of Lego is that it is a heirloom toy, it stays in the family.
In mine now for three generations and likely more to come.

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desuyone
I don't really get the point, if you make bio plastic that lasts as long as
normal plastic then won't it have the same effect on our plastic waste
problem. Also, it is not like taking some oil out of the earth together with
the tons of oil that are taken out for fuel (probably from a thickness that
isn't really used for much else) will have a worse effects on our environment
than clearing out enormous pieces of land to grow all these plants.

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tracker1
I think there's actually a few reasons why they are investing.

1) it makes them look like they care about green earth stuff, not saying they
don't, but the marketing image is priceless.

2) it's potentially valuable IP that can be licensed to other companies, even
where it doesn't work for lego, it might be a great fit more broadly.

3) Having it wear down more quickly means more responsible waste, also it
ensures the product may instead of lasting decades, only last a few years.

4) Eventually crude oil will run out, and even before that will get much more
costly to use as source material.

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specialist
If they create a suitable plastic substitute, they'll make a mint off the
technology alone.

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byron_fast
I doubt their customers care. They should make things their customers care
about.

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FredDollen
It's more about virtue signaling

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ravenstine
Why would you assume that? Granted, there _is_ a lot of corporate virtue
signalling, and it's existed since time immemorial, but I don't get the sense
Lego is necessarily virtue signalling in this case, or at least virtue
signalling in a way that isn't genuine. One reason I say this is because it's
a family-owned company and really aren't comparable to a corporate giants like
Procter & Gamble(which happens to be known for blatant virtue signalling),
Coca Cola, or Disney, to name a few.

I don't think it's farfetched for someone in charge at Lego to see value in
biodegradable plastic, and there really isn't much of a reason for them not to
research into and use biodegradable plastic if it was a viable alternative to
whatever they're currently using.

Now, if they were making commercials about biodegradable Legos that don't
exist, or "toxic masculinity", or saving the whales, then you could definitely
say that Lego is virtue signalling. But I don't see that here.

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thrower123
It sort of is. The last time I saw this story going around, it was that they
were swapping out the rubberier non-ABS bits that are almost always green tree
elements to some kind of sugarcane-based polyethelene.

[https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/news-
room/2018/march/pfp](https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/news-
room/2018/march/pfp)

