The LEGO Group is building a better tomorrow, brick by brick. In 2024 alone, 96% of the company’s production waste was reused, recycled, or recovered, keeping the company’s landfill contributions at near-zero for the third year in a row.
Despite a minor increase in its waste outputs over the year, the LEGO Group’s accumulated landfill waste is still well under the 1% mark. Additionally, the company has continued to reduce waste incineration without energy recovery every year since 2022. Instead, the LEGO Group focuses on recovering its plastic, wood pallets, and cardboard waste and recycling them into useful materials across production.
In order to meet its Zero Impact in Operations goal, a targeted plan to reduce carbon emissions, energy use, water usage, and waste generation within production, the LEGO Group had to think outside of the toy box. Factories in Denmark, China, and Mexico reduced waste by more than 160 tons in 2024 by utilizing new technologies to determine raw materials fit for recirculation. In Czechia, employees established a system to return cardboard packaging cores to the supplier instead of treating them as waste, conserving 39 tons of cardboard throughout the year. Most leftover plastics are reconstituted into LEGO bricks, but unfit scraps are recycled into other manufacturing industries, like car manufacturing and electronics.
Learn more about the LEGO Group’s current environmental efforts in the company’s 2024 Sustainability Progress Report, available on its website.
