Paper bags appearing in sets

Glad to see paper bags finally appearing. I feel like we've been talking about them showing up for years, though. They keep rearing their heads but not appearing in any wide-release sets. And while that seems to be changing, it's weird that these bags are different to the ones that have been tested and teased since 2020.

Hopefully we'll see a wide-release set with only paper bags next year, but the rollout is taking much longer than anticipated. And I still think it's dumb of LEGO to waste paper by advertising the change with those little pamphlets so many months before paper bags actually show up.

Very good; let's hope they're from already recycled material. Maybe LEGO can do away the bags-within-bags also. Yeah I know, more searching but also less waste.

@jkb said:
"Very good; let's hope they're from already recycled material. Maybe LEGO can do away the bags-within-bags also. Yeah I know, more searching but also less waste."

Bags-within-bags seem to be the result of the way lego assembles pieces for sets. It's an automated process on a very large, global scale so I think it won't disappear anytime soon.

@jkb said:
"Very good; let's hope they're from already recycled material. Maybe LEGO can do away the bags-within-bags also. Yeah I know, more searching but also less waste."

How about just putting everything into one bag, oh wait...

Designer here-
If you have built a set that used the paper bags, please consider leaving feedback through our official channels! We'd love to hear comments on what you appreciate about them, what you think can be improved, and any ideas you would like to share with us.
It's an especially big help now since they are still quite new.

Knew that parts with sharp edges would cause a problem with tearing/puncturing the paper bags, so I really do hope that it doesn't become a thing of the boxes ending up with loose bits everywhere from torn bags. Least Lego's always been great at replacing missing parts if the very worst should happen.

@CapnRex101 said:
"The material feels thicker and there are no tabs to open the bag"
Does the thicker paper mean that the plastic lining of the white paper bags has been done away with?

This will be a PITA to check whether some small part is still in the bag hidden or jammed in a corner. This might be no problem with bigger parts but when opening bags with 100s of Technic pins or other similar small parts this might get annoying. One will have to destroy the bag pretty much to be sure everything has been removed.

I'm really excited about this. I always hate the huge pile of plastic bags at the end of a large build, it'll be great for that to be a thing of the past.

I'm still nostalgic for the perforated plastic bags of the 90s though. That will never go away.

@MisterBrickster: Yeah, plastic bags just do not want to stay pushed down in the trash can. And I miss the perforated bags too, although I do not miss having to open every bag in a big set before you can start building.

it will be sad times for me to experience lego sets onwards. Till now I have plastic bag packed in my boxes and I am reusing them all the time for all my sets. Also putting back pieces to numbered plastic bags. Also I kept plastic bags from my childhood in the boxes as well. So in my case it is more wasting to throw away a paper bags after opening and use plastic zip bags instead.

Prediction: somebody's going to run an April Fool's article where Lego announces paper bricks.

Finally! Odd that I received so many pamphlets in my 2022 sets about the introduction of paper bags and yet never had any sign of them.

The instruction manual for the main/A build of 31131 Downtown Noodle Shop had a whole page near the front talking about how they're switching to paper so you may see a mix of packaging in sets. Which was...odd because there were only plastic bags, and now there's another "useless" page in a manual that had to be printed. Marginal ink savings, but likely not negligible across the entire product line.

Separately, the VIP add on pack tossed into my order from a few months back - which of course was just a single plastic bag like with polybags - had a stud-sized hole in the very corner. When I opened the shipping box, I found a few pieces from that bag loose in the packing material. And the shipping box's tolerances meant there was a hole in the corner too, and we found a few pieces in the grass outside our front door! I've yet to check an inventory to see how many were lost in transit, but that was a plastic bag. I can imagine paper bags being less durable might cause similar piece escapes to happen, though hopefully the sets' boxes will keep them contained.

@JukeLimited said:
"The instruction manual for the main/A build of 31131 Downtown Noodle Shop had a whole page near the front talking about how they're switching to paper so you may see a mix of packaging in sets. Which was...odd because there were only plastic bags, and now there's another "useless" page in a manual that had to be printed. Marginal ink savings, but likely not negligible across the entire product line."

I've even had an entire flyer announcing the switch when I got the Lego House collection set!

Great! I always feel guilty throwing away such huge amounts of plastic

Paper bags would be less susceptible to damage if the boxes were shrunk to a size suitable for the contents.
Having oversize boxes allowing a huge amount of space for the contents to rattle around during transit is asking for trouble.

@ResIpsaLoquitur said:
"Prediction: somebody's going to run an April Fool's article where Lego announces paper bricks."

In order to be more environmentally friendly, the machines that make the bricks will now be made from paper.

@sanders2221 said:
"in my case it is more wasting to throw away a paper bags after opening and use plastic zip bags instead."

Then keep the paper bags and reuse them, what a non-issue to complain about. This literally changes nothing.

I think they should make the bags edible. Feed all the hungry Lego builders.

@lippidp said:
"I think they should make the bags edible."
You mean they're not?
Whoops.

@miskox said:
"I hope the bags are not from the recycled material. You never know what you might get. (the same goes for the toilet paper made of recycled paper. Bacteria in the recycled paper can spread thru sensitive area)."

Doggy doggy what now?

This seems to be speculation and fearmongering

@miskox said:
"I hope the bags are not from the recycled material. You never know what you might get. (the same goes for the toilet paper made of recycled paper. Bacteria in the recycled paper can spread thru sensitive area)."
Well obviously if you take off your hazmat suit you've got nobody but yourself to blame.

@miskox said:
"I hope the bags are not from the recycled material. You never know what you might get. (the same goes for the toilet paper made of recycled paper. Bacteria in the recycled paper can spread thru sensitive area)."

Yikes! I wish I could use some recycled toilet paper to wipe this comment from the thread. BS members are supposed to be smarter than this! Be better!

Edit: I hope the bag situation may prompt @Huw and @CapnRex101 to similarly change their policy regarding photos of the bags in sets. Reviews on other media such as BrothersBrick do include a shot of the bags contained in the sets.

This is a huge help for those of us who often buy open-boxed sets on the secondary market where we may have to bid on sets that only have a picture of the bags with no other guarantee of completenss.

@VintageDude said:
"But, but....
What about those oversized cardboard boxes
used for Technic Sets for an example?

Cardboard boxes that are bigger than they need to be, should be forbidden.
I think that TLG misses the whole picture by only adressing one issue at the time.

"I can't see the forest because of all the trees"."

I really like that to be solved. The boxes should be full (i.e. 95% of the space used by brick and manuals).
There is also another good reason for Lego to abide by that: most of US complains of lacking space to store all those sets - smaller but fuller boxes would help in that sense. Also smaller boxes cost less.
I would also like it if Lego would define a few size of boxes and stick with them - this would make storing them easier - now they have all sorts of disparate size which are not compatible to each other and are difficult to stack efficiently.

Sorry, I don`t appreciate this. It takes away the joy of seeing the parts IN the bags, it`s a part of the experience. I always recycle all the plastic/bags anyways. We have a good system for that in Norway.

@HOBBES said:
" @VintageDude said:
"But, but....
What about those oversized cardboard boxes
used for Technic Sets for an example?

Cardboard boxes that are bigger than they need to be, should be forbidden.
I think that TLG misses the whole picture by only adressing one issue at the time.

"I can't see the forest because of all the trees"."

I really like that to be solved. The boxes should be full (i.e. 95% of the space used by brick and manuals).
There is also another good reason for Lego to abide by that: most of US complains of lacking space to store all those sets - smaller but fuller boxes would help in that sense. Also smaller boxes cost less.
I would also like it if Lego would define a few size of boxes and stick with them - this would make storing them easier - now they have all sorts of disparate size which are not compatible to each other and are difficult to stack efficiently."

Seems that those two wishes rather contradict each other.

Plastic is great!
Why's everyone so down on plastic?
Plastic is great! It's a universal good!

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@legoDad42 said:
"Plastic is great!
Why's everyone so down on plastic?
Plastic is great! It's a universal good! "

To all of that, I say this: there are waste plastic pieces that are so small, in everything we eat, drink, and use, they can pass through the blood brain / barrier. They aren't there on purpose, it's basically when plastic breaks down it gets smaller... and smaller... and smaller. It's everywhere, and has been for some time. Plastic waste is deep in the oceans, on land, blown in the wind, and in outer space (from satellites / space junk). You might as well rename this planet from "Earth" to "Plastic".

I don't mean to freak anyone out, but it's true. LEGO might not degrade in our children's children's children's lifetimes, but other things we use do. We have to care for this Earth while we can. There is NO Planet "B", after all!

@ShinyBidoof said:
" @HOBBES said:
" @VintageDude said:
"But, but....
What about those oversized cardboard boxes
used for Technic Sets for an example?

Cardboard boxes that are bigger than they need to be, should be forbidden.
I think that TLG misses the whole picture by only adressing one issue at the time.

"I can't see the forest because of all the trees"."

I really like that to be solved. The boxes should be full (i.e. 95% of the space used by brick and manuals).
There is also another good reason for Lego to abide by that: most of US complains of lacking space to store all those sets - smaller but fuller boxes would help in that sense. Also smaller boxes cost less.
I would also like it if Lego would define a few size of boxes and stick with them - this would make storing them easier - now they have all sorts of disparate size which are not compatible to each other and are difficult to stack efficiently."

Seems that those two wishes rather contradict each other."

Not at all: Let's take a foot print. Let's say 18 inches by 30 inches; so, this is the big box. For the largest set, you make a box that is 18 inches tall by 30 inches wide and the depth really depends on the real size of the set (i.e. could be 2.5 inches for 1500 pieces and 5 inches for 4000 pieces). Then you can start creating the smaller boxes: you can do boxes that are 9 inches by 30 inches (let's use 2 inches depth) those two boxes stack perfectly on top of the big boxes (alternatively you can do 15 x 18). If you need smaller, you can do 3 boxes of 18 by 10 those three boxes also stack perfectly on top of the previous two series. You need smaller still, how about 9 by 15; 4 of those will also stack perfectly on top of the lot. You can even do 6 boxes of 9 by 10. Anyway, you get the idea. In fact such a setup would also tremendously diminish the company shipping costs.

Plastic is an incredibly beneficial and useful material that has saved literally innumerable lives through our wise use of many of its helpful properties, such as being lightweight, sterile, and incredibly durable/long-lasting.

You are right that it would be idiotic to simply stop using plastic in every circumstance with no replacement, but you are objectively wrong in this assertion

@legoDad42 said:
"IT IS A UNIVERSAL GOOD."

As @Murdoch17 said previously, plastic eventually breaks down into microplastics which can have serious effects on human health and the environment. Additionally, plastic is very hard to repurpose or recycle, so waste plastic usually is just that - waste. Regardless of how seriously you view these problems, you can't reasonably argue that these are good things.

For many of the uses of plastic that you are referring to, you are right that plastic is currently our best option by far.

The majority of the uses you mention are intended to be used indefinitely, a role that plastic fills well. Additionally, many others are about sanitation in food and medical settings, and while plastic isn't great for those roles because, it is currently the best option available depending on the specific situation.

Along with these the uses of plastic that you mention, there is a huge amount of plastic used in single-use capacities that could be met much better by other materials. For example, styrofoam packing materials, disposable grocery bags, and these LEGO bags.

These don't need to be made of materials impervious to biological factors that will last indefinitely. Since they are meant to be disposed of, regardless of how useful it is, plastic is simply a bad material fit. Instead, it makes sense to use biobased materials designed to be reclaimed easily.

Even for the areas where plastic is currently the best option, it is worth considering if there are alternatives that can minimize the negative side effects (such as compostable plastic) because most products will have an end-of-life eventually and so it is better to use materials that will work well at all stages.