Traditional Plastics Obsolete? Toy Mogul Partners with SABIC, Bullish on Recycled Plastics

The first product in the Mattel-SABIC partnership is MEGA BLOKS Green Town, the first toy range to be certified as 'carbon neutral' in mass retail. The new construction playset range, which includes Developing and Protecting Farms and Building and Learning Eco-Houses, not only uses sustainable materials but also helps to promote green behaviour among children.

From the Matchbox brand, all Action Driver toy sets and Matchbox waste recycling trucks contain SABIC materials, helping to drive the brand's plans for a better future, with all Matchbox die-cast cars, toy sets and packaging capable of being 100% recycled, recyclable or bio-based plastic materials by 2030.

Mattel is the first toy manufacturer known to have partnered with SABIC to apply a mass balance approach to the production of high-quality new plastic products from second-generation renewable raw materials.

SABIC certified renewable polymers include a wide range of polypropylene and polyethylene materials derived from second-generation renewable raw materials that do not compete directly with human food and animal feed production. Compared to comparable fossil-based virgin products, each kilogram of SABIC bio-based resin produced reduces CO2 emissions by an average of around 4 kg, while reducing fossil resource consumption by up to 80%. In addition, these plant-based materials can facilitate a smooth transition from fossil-based to bio-based materials, while ensuring purity, quality, safety and convenience.

As a toy industry that is highly dependent on plastic - according to The World Counts - 90% of the toys sold on the market today are made of plastic and 80% of them end up in landfill. These landfilled toys remain in the soil for a long time.

Once landfilled, plastic building blocks take 1300 years to degrade. Long periods of plastic toys in landfill can pollute the environment. How to reduce toy waste and move towards a circular economy is a future direction that many toy manufacturers are thinking about. Not only are they encouraging the sharing and reuse of toys, they are also focusing on the recycling of toys.

For example, German toy brand Playmobil has launched a new themed Explore the Earth range this year, which contains an average of 80% sustainable materials, including recycled materials and bio-based plastics.

In the Explore the Earth collection, children can play with, learn about and collect a variety of Playmobil characters and animals from around the world, and explore the Amazon rainforest, which is vital to the ecosystem.

British toy brand Vivid Goliath has launched its Recycling range of characters made from 70% recycled materials. From dumplings to dragons, hot dogs to handbags, popcorn to pandas, there are over 90 recycled items to collect in the first season, covering eight fun categories including food, nature, under the sea, movie nights and more. Special limited edition recycled items also include glittering meteors, golden treasure chests and glowing ghosts.

Danish water play toy brand Dantoy's latest toy collection, Blue Marine Toys, is made from recycled nautical equipment. At the company's factory in Hobro, Denmark, the recycled marine equipment is transformed into a range of sand and water toys. The collection is directly inspired by the materials used in them, with colours and shapes inspired by sand, water, coral and more.

The LEGO Group is also advancing the use of sustainable materials, with more than 100 LEGO elements now made from environmentally friendly materials. For example, bio-based polyethylene (bio-PE) is made from sugar cane and is used to make soft, tiny toy accessories such as trees, branches, leaves and miniature accessories. In addition, they have spent three years testing more than 250 PET materials and hundreds of plastic formulations to arrive at a material formulation that will meet quality, safety and play standards. The material formulation is currently in the testing phase and the research team says it needs to be evaluated to see if it can go into pilot production.