Quick look: 30710 Skid-Steer Loader
Posted by Huw,
It seems that rumours of the polybag's demise and replacement by paper are premature, because plastic packaging will continue to be used in the USA this year for the small recruitment bags you typically find near supermarket checkouts.
That causes something of a dilemma for our database, where we record one type of packaging type per set!
Anyway, 30710 Skid-Steer Loader is this year's Technic offering which you should start to find in the shops soon.
Summary
30710 Skid-Steer Loader, 52 pieces.
Worth picking up if you see it in the shops
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
The 52-piece set builds an orange digger with one function: raising and lowering the bucket using the gear behind the cab.
There's not much more to say about it really, other than that it contains one of the 3x5 flip-flop beams which are relatively new and rare. The complete inventory can be viewed here.
It's definitely worth Technic fans picking it up if seen, but not worth going out of the way for!
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33 comments on this article
Interesting, I just bought this in store yesterday, and was surprised about the look as it was paper bag. But Lego is now producing both paper and plastic bag variants of these?
I'm any case, love this little Technic fella'!
@Sirre said:
"Interesting, I just bought this in store yesterday, and was surprised about the look as it was paper bag. But Lego is now producing both paper and plastic bag variants of these?
I'm any case, love this little Technic fella'!"
I think it's because the Mexican factory that manufacturers for the US market is not yet geared up for paper bags. I don't think they are appearing in boxes there yet, either.
The 3L axles should have been grey in stead of yellow
I like that TLG is sticking with the JCB/Volvo one-armed design!
Cute! Are there any other poly bags slated for review @Huw? I'm interested in the space science mech and the Dreamzzz one! Just waiting for them to become widely available now!
@Huw said:
" @Sirre said:
"Interesting, I just bought this in store yesterday, and was surprised about the look as it was paper bag. But Lego is now producing both paper and plastic bag variants of these?
I'm any case, love this little Technic fella'!"
I think it's because the Mexican factory that manufacturers for the US market is not yet geared up for paper bags. I don't think they are appearing in boxes there yet, either."
Are "duplicate" set numbers an option for this? E.g.30710-1 and 30710-2 ? Or are notes the easiest?
As simple as this is, I like this a lot more than the 42197 Backhoe Loader., and will certainly buy it when I see it in store. Apart from those stupid yellow axles this looks way better, has the same one basic function, just lacks all the junk they tacked onto that one just to make it meet the €10 price point. This one is just pure and simple. Considering the price that's all I could ask for.
As for still plastic bags in the US, I'm sure Lego will manage to change those to paper within the next few centuries. Give them some time....
I would call these paperbags instead of polybags
@merman said:
"The 3L axles should have been grey in stead of yellow"
They don't do this so it's easier to tell size apart for newbies
@tomchiverton said:
" @merman said:
"The 3L axles should have been grey in stead of yellow"
They don't do this so it's easier to tell size apart for newbies"
Tell them apart from what? The red 2L axles? The dark gray 4L axles with stopper? The brown 5L axles with stopper?
@Huw said:
" @Sirre said:
"Interesting, I just bought this in store yesterday, and was surprised about the look as it was paper bag. But Lego is now producing both paper and plastic bag variants of these?
I'm any case, love this little Technic fella'!"
I think it's because the Mexican factory that manufacturers for the US market is not yet geared up for paper bags. I don't think they are appearing in boxes there yet, either."
You are correct. No paper bags at all (except the cape bag from the DnD set). We also still have the old style boxes, not the newer European ones that are lift off. Was funny to build my Polaroid camera I got in Billund and compare to my friend's from the US how different the boxes and bags were
Time to expand the database, I saw bins filled with paper bags yesterday in Copenhagen!
@Tuzi said:
"Time to expand the database, I saw bins filled with paper bags yesterday in Copenhagen! "
We are recording them as paper with a note about being plastic in NA.
How many hard-core collectors will need to collect both package versions?
It's just too adorable!
I really like this cute set, but something is a bit off for me. I think the bucket should've been closer to the cabin. Instead of using part 32014, they should've used 32039.
@raven_za said:
" @Huw said:
" @Sirre said:
"Interesting, I just bought this in store yesterday, and was surprised about the look as it was paper bag. But Lego is now producing both paper and plastic bag variants of these?
I'm any case, love this little Technic fella'!"
I think it's because the Mexican factory that manufacturers for the US market is not yet geared up for paper bags. I don't think they are appearing in boxes there yet, either."
Are "duplicate" set numbers an option for this? E.g.30710-1 and 30710-2 ? Or are notes the easiest?"
In addition to what @Huw said after your post (that it'll be in the notes), -1, -2, etc. are used for when a completely different set reuses a number, not for variant versions of a set that have the same number.
@Huw said:
" @Sirre said:
"Interesting, I just bought this in store yesterday, and was surprised about the look as it was paper bag. But Lego is now producing both paper and plastic bag variants of these?
I'm any case, love this little Technic fella'!"
I think it's because the Mexican factory that manufacturers for the US market is not yet geared up for paper bags. I don't think they are appearing in boxes there yet, either."
You probably saw the somewhat amusing video on the JANGBRiCKS YouTube channel where he showed off all the paper bags he got during 2024, which was just a pile of plastics.
Based on that video, I'd say you're on the money about the US market not yet having paper bags in its sets.
But here in Australia, we still get a mixture. I got two sets for Christmas and one was all paper bags, while the other was all plastic.
@Rare_White_Ape, it's a mixture here too, but paper is becoming more prevalent.
@WizardOfOss said:
" @tomchiverton said:
" @merman said:
"The 3L axles should have been grey in stead of yellow"
They don't do this so it's easier to tell size apart for newbies"
Tell them apart from what? The red 2L axles? The dark gray 4L axles with stopper? The brown 5L axles with stopper?"
I think you answered your own question. These days it's apparently too difficult to hold an axle alongside a brick to check its length, so we have colour barf.
I remember when Technic axles we're just black, whatever the size...
Can confirm, in the US, I haven't seen any paper bags at all in any set I've gotten.
@Huw said:
" @Rare_White_Ape , it's a mixture here too, but paper is becoming more prevalent."
Weirdly enough, at the start of last year I bought 31152 Space Astronaut, which was my first and for a long time only set with (mostly) paper bags. But in October, I bought a second copy of that same set to have AstroDog permanently accompany my Astronaut....but this time it was all plastic again.
Progress is slow, horribly slow....
As for this skid steer loader, just been to the local toy store, but unfortunately they didn't have it yet. Curious to see if for Europe these actually will all be paper bags now.
The sad thing is that the change to these "paper" bags, at least over here, actually means worse environmental effects. The plastic bags being pure plastic meant they could be recycled and therefore went in the yellow bag/bin. The new bags being a composite material means they go in the black bin for "other" waste that goes straight to the incinerator after collection.
These small cute Technic sets are way better than the big and scary ones.
The only paper bag I've yet seen is the one holding the dino body in 76960. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll see any other ones this year.
@AustinPowers said:
"The sad thing is that the change to these "paper" bags, at least over here, actually means worse environmental effects. The plastic bags being pure plastic meant they could be recycled and therefore went in the yellow bag/bin. The new bags being a composite material means they go in the black bin for "other" waste that goes straight to the incinerator after collection. "
They were supposed to have a low enough plastic content to be recyclable, or does your region just have very stringent restrictions on what counts?
@AustinPowers said:
"The sad thing is that the change to these "paper" bags, at least over here, actually means worse environmental effects. The plastic bags being pure plastic meant they could be recycled and therefore went in the yellow bag/bin. The new bags being a composite material means they go in the black bin for "other" waste that goes straight to the incinerator after collection. "
I'm curious if the old bags ever were actually recyclable in your locale. Lego polybags, and almost all plastic bags in sets, are made out of polypropylene (resin code 5). That stuff is apparently very difficult to deal with in the recycling stream. There is no market for PP film in the US, and to the best of my knowledge, it is not accepted for collection anywhere in the country. Even PP tubs, which are very common in consumer packaging, are still fairly widely rejected. Our locale did not accept them for a long time.
The other bag film material, polyethylene, HDPE code 2 and LDPE code 4, is much more widely recyclable. It's a softer, milkier film that feels "cheap" in comparison to PP. Lego makes very limited use of it, mostly in bags for extra-large parts. However, its recyclability is contingent on people sorting into a completely separate waste steam. PE film is hated in the main US recycling system because people see the little triangle symbol, think "hey, it must be recyclable!" and put it in curbside bins. From there, it goes through sorting machinery at recycling centers, gets stuck around it, gums it up, and brings everything to a halt while workers have to laboriously untangle it. This seriously hampers the efficiency of the recycling system, which is already so inefficient and unprofitable that lots of "recyclables" get landfilled anyway because there's just no market for them.
Anyway, the correct way to recycle PE bags is to bring them to collection bins usually made available in supermarkets. But woe betide you if you stick a PP Lego bag in there. That contaminates the whole batch and likely results in it getting landfilled. (Incineration is relatively uncommon in the US, due to air pollution and an abundance of empty land trash can be dumped in. Locally, all our trash is loaded onto unit trains and carried about 150 miles east where it is dumped into two enormous landfills in the desert. It's insane to watch these trains go past every day and fathom the quantity of trash they are carrying.)
It's depressing to hear that Lego's paper bags are a non-recyclable composite. As others in this thread have noted, Lego's Mexico plant has still not produced any paper bags for my own study. However, I have gotten the cardboard CMF packages, and noted the Space figures were printed with a mildly iridescent silver ink. That's indicative of metal in the ink, which is non-recyclable. So all my cardboard CMF packages got landfilled. It's pathetic, really.
Everybody, do the Greenwash!
The failure to launch paper bags on the North American continent over the past five years is absurd. Don't get me wrong, part of me will sorely miss plastic bags when they're gone, the ability to build-in-bag challenge yourself for Advent Calendars will be over (no other sets are single-bag anymore AFAIK) and the white border on the paper versions of these polybags is incredibly ugly and cheap, but to be strung along with "look forward to our new eco-friendly bags" forever is nuts. At this point I doubt it's a case of the Mexico plant still needing to cycle out the rest of its plastic; from when they announced the gradual shift over they definitely restocked their bag film. Every half-year I get a set expecting to finally get some paper (especially with all of the articles here that Paper Is Here For Reals) and it never comes. The only way I've gotten paper bagged Lego is from buying imported magazine gifts.
@Huw said:
" @Sirre said:
"Interesting, I just bought this in store yesterday, and was surprised about the look as it was paper bag. But Lego is now producing both paper and plastic bag variants of these?
I'm any case, love this little Technic fella'!"
I think it's because the Mexican factory that manufacturers for the US market is not yet geared up for paper bags. I don't think they are appearing in boxes there yet, either."
I just saw this set at Walmart last night, and it's definitely still a traditional polybag. But remember that all NA packaging is different from EU packaging anyways, between language requirements, safety notices, and the contents info that's missing from your stuff. Probably your easiest solution would be to coordinate with Bricklink and see about doing -1/-2 entries. They typically do this when there's a box/bag situation, and they also did it for black/blue SW boxes.
@TheOtherMike said:
"The only paper bag I've yet seen is the one holding the dino body in 76960 . I'm beginning to wonder if I'll see any other ones this year.
@AustinPowers said:
"The sad thing is that the change to these "paper" bags, at least over here, actually means worse environmental effects. The plastic bags being pure plastic meant they could be recycled and therefore went in the yellow bag/bin. The new bags being a composite material means they go in the black bin for "other" waste that goes straight to the incinerator after collection. "
They were supposed to have a low enough plastic content to be recyclable, or does your region just have very stringent restrictions on what counts?"
I wrote a comprehensive answer to your question but when I tried to post it it was gone, even though according to the counter my session had not timed out.
I am not going to rewrite all that. Short answer, yes our restrictions are very stringent and the new type of bags fall under the terms of the "non-recyclable" rest waste that can only be collected together with other rest trash like ash, kitchen waste like chicken bones, soiled materials etc. End result, that waste gets incinerated. At least it's used for power generation, so not completely useless I guess.
@TheOtherMike:
Bricklink did it for when black box SW sets switched to blue boxes. I believe they also did it for Kabaya sets where the box contains a polybag that looks like it's intended for individual sale. BL doesn't catalog the gumballs and candy, so the only contents of the boxed set would be the bagged set. They also used this on the Shellraiser, when they discovered how badly the original version was designed. The updated version involved such an extensive redesign that they split it off into its own catalog listing. Either the variant inventory system couldn't handle the amount of changes, or they just decided it was way too messy to do it that way.
@Duq:
They used to just do an inset with a 1:1 image of the axles. I just built the Renegade II, and that feature is still present, but so easy to overlook for small axles in a non-Technic set that I thought they'd dropped it.
@AllenSmith:
I would think that any metal pigment would be able to settle out when the cardboard is turned back into pulp. Current equipment might not be set up to handle this, but it should still work. My high school chemistry teacher showed us an experiment where he pulped some breakfast cereal, and then used a centrifuge to separate out some black particles. Those particles were the iron content that's listed on the nutrition panel. Of course, then the question is if adding a process to handle this extraction would make the entire process unprofitable.
@Huw said:
" @Sirre said:
"Interesting, I just bought this in store yesterday, and was surprised about the look as it was paper bag. But Lego is now producing both paper and plastic bag variants of these?
I'm any case, love this little Technic fella'!"
I think it's because the Mexican factory that manufacturers for the US market is not yet geared up for paper bags. I don't think they are appearing in boxes there yet, either."
The only elements I've ever seen packaged in paper-ish bags in NA are ones for specialised figures, specifically Velociraptors. Other characters such as Jabba and Hulk may also be included (I don't own any of them so I wouldn't know), but it really only seems like one internal packaging line was switched over in the four-ish years. I've never seen any mention of general use elements or even the unnumbered bags being paper.
As a side note, there's no consistent design to the plastic bags here and some have copyright dates for 2017 while others do not.
only the second time an orange bucket is used in a set. glad to see so I can make more Kubota Tractor mocs and load up on these poly bags/paper bags with buckets and other useful parts
KAWAII!! ^_^