The world’s biggest tyre manufacturer is now making its tyres from old fishing nets

Yes, it’s our favourite fun fact: Lego is technically the world’s largest tyre manufacturer, producing over 300 million little rubber circles each year.

And now there’s an extra little nugget of info that you can share when you roll out that stat at a dull dinner party, because Lego is making fairly big strides with recycled materials.

In fact, the company recently revealed a new tyre compound that uses old fishing nets, ropes and engine oil in its production. As a result, each tyre is made using over one-third recycled materials, reducing Lego’s reliance on virgin fossil fuel-based ingredients.

The new material (known as rSEBS or styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene, with the lowercase ‘r’ signifying the presence of recycled material) is already being used in ‘select Lego sets’, with a full transition planned for later this year. Wonder if they’ll do us a life-size set to test out on TG’s long-term test fleet.

“Over the past five years, we have invested significant time in developing and testing this new recycled material to ensure it meets our high standards for quality, safety, and durability,” said Lego’s sustainability boss Annette Stube.

“The tyres are just one of many options we’re working on to make our products more sustainable and it’s encouraging to see something this innovative making it into our sets.”