Is Traditional Plastic Obsolete? Toy Geeks Are Looking For Recycled Plastic

Toy giant Mattel is launching new products made entirely of certified renewable SABIC® PP (polypropylene) under the MEGA and Matchbox brands, with others to follow.

Reduce fossil resource consumption by 80%

Mattel's first product in the SABIC partnership is MEGA BLOKS Green Town, the first toy line to be certified "carbon neutral" in mass retail. The new construction toy set line, which includes "Grow and Protect the Farm" and "Build and Learn Eco Houses", not only uses sustainable materials, but also promotes green behaviour for children.

From the Matchbox brand, to all Action Driver toy sets and Matchbox waste recycling trucks containing SABIC materials, in support of the brand's Advancing a Better Future initiative, all Matchbox die-cast cars, toy sets and packaging will be 100% recycled by 2030. Recyclable or bio-based plastic materials.

Mattel is the first toymaker to partner with SABIC to use a quality-balanced approach to produce high-quality new plastic products from second-generation renewable materials.

SABIC Certified renewable polymers include a variety of polypropylene and polyethylene materials derived from second generation renewable feedstocks that do not directly compete with the production of human food and animal feed. Each kilogram of SABIC bio-based resin produced reduces carbon dioxide emissions by an average of about 4 kg compared to comparable fossil-based native products, while reducing fossil resource consumption by up to 80%. In addition, such plant-based materials can facilitate the smooth conversion from fossil-based to bio-based materials while ensuring purity, quality, safety and convenience.

Recycling and regeneration help the sustainable development of toy industry

As a "highly plastic dependent" toy industry -- according to The World Counts, 90 percent of toys sold on the market today are made of plastic, and 80 percent end up in landfills. These toys, which end up in landfills, stay in the soil for a long time.

Once in a landfill, plastic building blocks can take 1,300 years to degrade. The long-term landfill of plastic toys will cause pollution to the environment. How to reduce the waste of toys and move towards circular economy is the future direction that many toy manufacturers are thinking about. They not only encourage the sharing and reuse of toys, but also pay more attention to the recycling of toys.

For example, German toy brand Playmobil's new "Explore the Earth" line, launched this year, contains, on average, 80 percent sustainable materials, including recycled materials and bio-based plastics.

In the "Discover Earth" series, children can play, learn about and collect a variety of Playmobil characters and animal figures from around the world, and explore the Amazon rainforest, which is vital to the ecosystem.

From dumplings to dragons, hot dogs to tote bags, popcorn to pandas, the UK toy brand Vivid Goliath's Recycling line, whose characters are made from 70% recycled material, has more than 90 items available for collection in eight interesting categories in its first season. Including food, nature, underwater, movie night and more. Special limited edition items also include flashing meteors, golden treasure chests and glowing ghosts.

Blue Marine Toys, the latest line from Danish splashing toy brand Dantoy, is made from recycled Marine gear. At the company's factory in Hobro, Denmark, the recycled sailing gear has been transformed into a range of sand and water toys. The collection is directly inspired by the materials they use, with colors and shapes inspired by sand, water, coral and more.

The Lego Group is also pushing forward with sustainable materials, with more than 100 Lego elements now made from environmentally friendly materials. For example, bio-PE is made from sugarcane, which is used to make soft, tiny toy accessories such as trees, branches, leaves and mini accessories. In addition, they tested more than 250 PET materials and hundreds of plastic formulations over three years, finally coming up with a material formula that could meet quality, safety and gaming standards. The formula is currently in the testing phase, and the team says it needs to be evaluated to see if it can go into trial production.