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Re:Lego Struggles to Find a Plant-Based Plastic That Clicks by extropy on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @05:49PM (#20169689)
Hmm I'm not following. This is about moving away from oil dependance, not making bricks bio degenerable.
Re:Lego Struggles to Find a Plant-Based Plastic That Clicks by nerfhammer on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @06:08PM (#20169850)
I think that the idea is it matters less if it's not a disposable product.
Re:Lego Struggles to Find a Plant-Based Plastic That Clicks by whymauri on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @07:48PM (#20170520)
Huh? Lego makes billions of pieces a year, disposability or not.
Re:Lego Struggles to Find a Plant-Based Plastic That Clicks by randyrand on Thursday June 13, 2019 @04:52PM (#20178479)
Why does that matter? Producing plastic is not bad. It's burning it, littering it, or throwing it away in a permanent landfills that are the bad parts.

If it's not disposable, it's not bad.

Re:Lego Struggles to Find a Plant-Based Plastic That Clicks by gorbypark on Thursday June 13, 2019 @05:06PM (#20178579)
Less bad. I'm just making this up, but I assume something like this has to happen. Someone must drill/dig/mine for the oil (and maybe extract the bitumen from sand), transport that oil product to a refinery, refine the oil into something that can be used to make plastics, ship that refined product to a plastics manufacturing facility, make the raw plastic, ship that plastic off to Lego's manufacturing facility, make the Lego, package them up and ship it off to a warehouse where it will then be shipped to someone like Amazon who will then sell it and have it delivered to the buyer. There's a huge environmental costs to everything, whether it's oil based or plant based.
Re:Lego Struggles to Find a Plant-Based Plastic That Clicks by tracker1 on Thursday June 13, 2019 @05:49PM (#20178886)
As it stands, I understand the research as eventually crude oil will run out. For the most part, afaik, our plastics are a useful byproduct of our oil consumption for fuel that would otherwise be more landfill waste. It's best to make reusable and long term use plastics from that material.

As to plastics from plant sources, it seems that a lot of what we do use for disposable containers and packaging are a better fit for those sources considering how well they break down. Of course, this all assumes that proper landfills are used and it isn't just shipped out of the country of use.

Re:Lego Struggles to Find a Plant-Based Plastic That Clicks by nerfhammer on Thursday June 13, 2019 @01:13AM (#20171981)
I'm not OP but how does that compare to disposable items like plastic forks, cups, pens, bottles or bags?
Re:Lego Struggles to Find a Plant-Based Plastic That Clicks by timClicks on Thursday June 13, 2019 @04:50PM (#20178468)
Single-use plastics are a much larger problem. Compare how many food wrappers you might see in the park vs Lego bricks.
Re:Lego Struggles to Find a Plant-Based Plastic That Clicks by vbuwivbiu on Thursday June 13, 2019 @07:39AM (#20173759)
hopefully they will move away from oil but nevertheless Lego is the only product I can think of I don't mind lasting for millennia for future peoples to enjoy