Tag Archives: recycle

LEGO Introduces Tyres Made From Fishing Nets

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After a week in which the news has been dominated by two classroom bullies picking on the clever kid because he doesn’t have the latest sneakers, we’re in need of some good news. And, thanks to LEGO’s ongoing journey towards more sustainable products, we have some!

LEGO bricks, made from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, are a ‘virgin’ plastic; non-biodegradable, and crude oil based. Which means they last for ages, but are created by drilling through the earth’s crust and sucking out the carbon-intensive liquid dinosaurs within.

Experimentations with recycled plastics have so far not yielded environmental improvements (and massive respect to LEGO for saying so), but this week the world’s largest tyre manufacturer (yes, that’s LEGO!) announced a breakthrough in their tyre technology,

“Indistinguishable from the existing tyres fans know and love”, LEGO have developed a new compound made from 30% recycled materials, including old fishing nets (a scourge of our oceans), rope, and used engine oil.

Due for roll-out (hah!) in 2025, 120 different LEGO sets are due to adopt the new tyres, which means if you buy a six-wheeled set such as the LEGO Technic 42203 Tipping Dump Truck, the equivalent of two of its tyres are completely recycled. And better yet, a little less fishing net will be indiscriminately killing marine life.

You can read The LEGO Company’s full press release about their new recycled material tyres at the LEGO Newsroom, and today we like LEGO even more than we did before.

Gears and Garbage

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Lego Town Garbage Truck

This neat garbage truck (or ‘bin lorry’ where we’re from) proves that you don’t need zillions of bricks to appear here at The Lego Car Blog. It’s got more squeezed inside it than you might think too (insert your own ‘Your Mom’ joke), as builder Scott Hasse has designed ingenious hand-operated bin lift, compactor, and dumping mechanisms, each of which works beautifully! There’s lots more to see of Scott’s mini-figure garbage truck at his photostream by clicking here, where you can also find a link to the design on the LEGO Ideas platform from which you can vote for it to become an official LEGO set.

Lego Town Garbage Truck

Bin Lorry

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Lego Bin Lorry

LEGO would probably call this a Refuse Collection Truck or something, but round our way these are bin lorries and that’s what this shall henceforth be called! Anyway, it might just be a bin lorry, but what a magnificent one it is. Zbiczasty has recreated the Volvo FM cab and Anaconda compactor so brilliantly we had to click on the thumbnail image of the real truck in his recently modified Brickshelf gallery to check it wasn’t Lego too. See what we mean by clicking the link above.

P.S. Recycle!

Lego Refuse Truck

Recycle!

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Lego Garbage Truck

Christmas is almost over, and that means a bumper load for the bin men to haul away. Wrapping paper, boxes, and – in the case of the TLCB – many many empty bottles, are all ready to be thrown out.

Some of our more astute readers may have noticed a subtle message in this post’s title. We’ve given the job of sorting the office’s yuletide rubbish to TLCB Elves, who’ll be arranging it by material for our refuse collectors, or – if it’s even slightly edible – ‘disposing’ of it themselves. And if the Elves can recycle, so can anyone.

Oh, the model. It’s a rather brilliant remotely controlled Technic bin lorry / garbage truck with a whole host of thoroughly engineered working functions. Find out what it can do at Waler‘s Brickshelf page.

Lego Refuse Truck