As of November 2026, the best-known maker of toy bricks is the LEGO company. It is based in Billund, Denmark. The company started in 1932 as a small carpenter's shop in the village of Billund. Before plastic bricks, the shop made stepladders, ironing boards and wooden toys.
Toy bricks stick together because the studs on top fit tightly between the tubes inside another brick. LEGO's first plastic bricks, from 1949, were called Automatic Binding Bricks. They had no tubes inside, so they did not hold together as well as later ones. In 1958 the tubes were added. They make the bricks grip each other, which LEGO calls clutch power. Clutch means grip strength.
A fire in 1960 burned the warehouse of wooden toys. After that, the company chose to make only plastic toys. Plastic was chosen partly because it is easy to clean and comes in many colors and shapes. The earliest LEGO bricks were made of a wood-based plastic called cellulose acetate, until the company switched to ABS in 1963.
Toy bricks are made from tiny plastic grains called granules. The grains are stored in giant tanks called silos, which are big storage tanks. They are sent to the machines through tubes. Color is added at the machine, so one plastic can make bricks of many colors.
The plastic used for bricks is called ABS, which stands for acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. ABS is a thermoplastic. That means it melts, then sets. It softens when heated, so it can be melted, shaped in a mold and cooled hard again. It is a tough, strong plastic that can survive being dropped. It can take any color and can have a glossy finish.
In a factory, hot plastic is injected into one side of a mold. It spreads through little channels and fills the brick-shaped space. Cold water flows through the mold to cool the plastic. Then the mold opens and the new bricks drop onto a belt. Leftover plastic from the mold is ground up and used again almost right away.
Some bricks have faces or patterns. They get them printed or stamped on by machines. Pieces for sets are put into small bags, and the bags go into boxes that machines close. Machines weigh each box, and any that are too light or too heavy are flagged so a person can check them.
Almost all the plastic in a LEGO factory is reused. Scrap is the plastic left over from the molds. It is ground up and fed back in (as of June 2011). Faulty pieces, which are pieces that came out wrong, and the clear plastic used to flush a machine between colors are ground up and sold on. Very little is wasted. A visitor in 2011 saw one bin of hardened leftover plastic that had no use.
Plastic that is thrown away does not rot away like food or paper. It can stay around for hundreds of years. The plastic made in the world grew from about two million tonnes in 1950 to more than 400 million tonnes a year (as of February 2026). A tonne is a very large weight.
Bricks are built to be taken apart and built again. New bricks still fit bricks made since 1958. Most LEGO bricks are made of ABS, an oil-based plastic, which means it is made from oil. LEGO says it is looking for other materials to use instead (as of November 2026). It also says it wants to make its products from more sustainable materials by 2032 (as of November 2026). Sustainable means kind to the Earth.
Words to know
- thermoplastic: melts, then sets
- sustainable: kind to Earth
