Manufacturer MGA Entertainment has announced that it will start using biodegradable plastic and paper for its LOL Surprise toys packaging in 2020.
MGA Entertainment acknowledged that the LOL Surprise toys are generating large amounts of plastic waste and that they are trying to address this by using biodegradable plastic and paper for their packaging in 2020.
Currently, LOL toys have a main packaging that is shrink-wrapped in plastic and once customers open the package, they will see smaller plastic bags. These plastic bags will then contain another plastic casing filled with sand and trinkets, each individually wrapped in plastic.
MGA Entertainment's chief executive officer (CEO) Isaac Larian said: "We are working on a brand new biodegradable plastic for 2020." Larian also mentioned that the company will be using paper to replace the plastic used for all the inner packaging of the toys.
The company's current sustainability initiatives include partnering with recycling company TerraCycle to reduce the waste coming from the toy sets and aims to recycle not only the packaging, but also the toys themselves when kids are done using them.
Customers have the option of placing their LOL packaging and toys in a box and shipping it to TerraCycle or they can simply drop off the items at one of Terracycle's public drop-off locations. TerraCycle melts down the metal from these items and turns the plastic into pellets.
MGA Entertainment's chief marketing officer (CMO) Hailey Wu Sullivan claimed that the company has a "bigger plan in place with TerraCycle," but no public announcement has been made.
Currently, five different versions of LOL Surprise kits are on Amazon's Top 100 Toys list, and they can also be found at the top of multiple bestseller lists. AdAge forecasts LOL items to reach $500 million in sales this year alone.
Larian added: "The top seven to 15 best-selling overall toys are LOL Surprise. We could have sold 60% more if we had inventory."
