Lego develops first bricks made from recycled plastic bottles

Lego has unveiled its first bricks made from recycled plastic bottles and revealed that it hopes to include the pieces in sets within two years.

The Danish company, which takes its name from the Danish words for “leg godt”, meaning “play well”, makes billions of bricks a year, most of them from a plastic called ABS which gives them “clutch power”, helping them to grip together.

The prototype 4×2 bricks have been made from PET plastic from discarded bottles with additives to give them the strength of standard Lego parts, and are the result of three years of experiments with 250 variations of materials. 

On average, every 1-litre plastic bottle used in the process provides enough material for 10 4×2 Lego bricks.