Today in TechEco-Friendly Lego: Build objects out of bricks made from coffee beans and recycled materials
So you don't want to buy Lego either because you find their colors too gaudy or because you live a very eco-friendly life in which plastic has no room. But what do you do when you're suddenly seized by an inexplicable desire to build objects out of bricks? You can play Minecraft — but it can only do so much if you want to create something tangible. Or you can get a set of these eco-friendly Lego alternatives called Earth Blocks made out of four different and rather unusual materials: tree bark, green tea, cedar dust, and even coffee beans.
According to Micheal Hsu from The Wall Street Journal, these eco-friendly toys are a bit softer than Lego, so they don't snap together as tightly. Designer Colors Tokyo, didn't want too put too many synthetic component into the bricks, and used only enough polyprolene to bind all the particles together. Unlike the explosion of colors found in many Lego sets, Earth Blocks retain the earthy hues of their materials. They also smell similar to what they're made of — the green tea bricks, for instance, give off a flowery fragrance.
While it's pretty obvious that these bricks are not ideal for creating toy weapons like swords, their uniform shape means you can stack them on top of each other perfectly. You can get 50 pieces of cedar dust or coffee bean Earth Blocks right now for $27 from the Guggenheim store, with the tree bark and green tea versions coming out soon.
This article was written by Mariella Moon and originally appeared on Tecca
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