Lego is considering a brick rental scheme in an attempt to cut down on plastic waste. The Danish toymaker has promised to make all its bricks from sustainable (可持续的) sources by 2030 and is ploughing significant resources into finding alternatives.
Tim Brooks, vice-president responsible for sustainability, said the company was "totally open" to the idea of a product rental scheme but acknowledged that lost pieces could cause a significant problem. He said the rental scheme was "possible" but admitted there were some "technical barriers", one of which is the complexity of some Lego kits (配套元件), many of which contain thousands of pieces.
"What are the chances of giving them to an eight-year-old child and getting them all back again?" Mr Brooks added. "There is a lot of technical thinking that needs to be done.
We are right at beginning of that." Mr Brooks said Lego was exploring several ideas with a view to producing the highest value from products while consuming the least amount of resources. He said many would "probably never see the light of day" and there was no current plan to try a rental scheme.
Lego has come under increasing pressure to reduce its carbon footprint amid growing international alarm about the impact of plastic waste on the environment. It manufactures 19 billion pieces per year—36,000 a minute——that are made only of plastic while much of the internal packaging is also plastic.
So far, the only breakthrough has been the development of a line of bricks made from plant-based plastic sourced from sugarcane. The green trees, plants and flowers were first included in Lego sets late last year but account for only one-two percent of the total amount of plastic elements produced. Henrik Ostergaard Nielson, a production supervisor in Lego's factory in Billund, told the New York Times last year: "We need to learn again how to do this"
