“Lego® Group to Phase-Out Single-Use Plastic Bags in Lego® Stores in 2020,” by S.M. O’Connor

On Tuesday, November 26, 2019, Lego A/S, doing business as The LEGO® Group, announced that it will phase-out single-use plastic bags and replace them with sustainably-sourced paper bags in its over 500 LEGO® Stores in 2020 as part of the family-owned company’s goal to use 100% sustainable materials in packaging by 2025.

In a press release, The LEGO® Group stated, “The new paper bags will be introduced in stores once they have used up existing stocks of plastic retail bags to ensure no unnecessary waste is generated. The paper bags are made from 100% Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC) certified paper and are fully recyclable.”

The ambition of The LEGO® Group for sustainable packaging focuses on alternatives by 2025 that are renewable, efficient, and recyclable. By 2025, 100% of LEGO® boxes, bags, and special packaging will be made from recycled or sustainably-sourced renewable or recycled materials. The LEGO® Group stated it is “ongoingly exploring wats to optimize packaging, balancing consumer appeal with environmental action.” It is also “designing packaging that can be recycled by consumers.”

All paper and cardboard used in LEGO® products and product packaging is recyclable, sustainably sourced and certified by the F.S.C. Today, over 90% of the packaging for LEGO® sets, by weight, is cardboard or paper-based which is recyclable, sustainably sourced and certified by the F.S.C. The LEGO® Group stated, “The LEGO Group believes a new sustainable material must have an ever-lighter footprint than the material it replaces across key environmental and social impact areas such as fossil resource use, human rights and climate change.”

In 2018, The LEGO® Group began to use recycled plastic in packaging “blisters.” These are the transparent plastic windows that allow customers to have a sneak peek into some LEGO® boxes. Last year, The LEGO® Group also rolled out LEGO® boxes in the U.S.A. and Canada that feature the How2Recycle® label promoting packaging recycling and providing American and Canadian customers with clear guidance on how to responsibly recycle their LEGO® packaging. Two years ago, recyclable paper-pulp trays replaced plastic trays used in LEGO® Advent Calendars, which saved up to 1,000,000 plastic trays from going into landfills. Approximately 75% of cardboard used to make LEGO® boxes comes from recycled materials. Over the past five years, The LEGO® Group has reduced the average size of a LEGO® box by 14%, improving transparent efficiency, saving an average every year over 3,000 truckloads and 7,000 tons of cardboard.

The LEGO® Group stated, “The LEGO Group strives to make a positive impact on society and the planet, which our children will inherit, and it is this focus on future generations that drives our work. We believe we have a responsibility to minimise[1] the environmental impact of our operations and have set an ambitious target of using sustainable materials in packaging by 2025, and in materials by 2030. The LEGO Group also partners with the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), as part of efforts to reduce CO2 emissions in manufacturing and supply chain operations and promote global action on climate change…Through investments in wind and solar power, the energy used to make LEGO bricks is balanced by the production of renewable energy.”

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[1] This was a matter of The LEGO® Group using the British spelling of a word, not the word having been misspelled.

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The Field Museum of Natural History in March, 2018

The Field Museum of Natural History’s entrance pavilions are at opposite ends of Stanley Field Hall, which has a north-south axis. The two porticos (porches) are each reached by two successive flights of stairs.

Both porticos of The Field Museum of Natural History are flanked by two small porches, which each have two caryatids (columns in the shape of maidens). On the facade, the wings are adorned with a colonnade of attached fluted Ionic columns. The building’s fluted Ionic columns have volutes (spiral-scroll-shaped crowns).

Each portico of The Field Museum is tetrastyle in antis with double-ranked fluted Ionic columns capped by volutes. An entablature crowned by a pediment rests atop the columns. The continuous frieze in each case is relatively plain. The wave-themed acroteria that crown the pediments are borrowed from the Palace of a Fine Arts, which housed The Field Museum until 1920 and now houses the Museum of Science and Industry.

The Field Museum of Natural History isn’t “just” a museum. Visitors can watch scientists at work through windows at the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice DNA Discovery Center’s Pritzker Laboratory.

Mrs. Charles (Laura) Schweppe, a daughter and co-heiress of John Graves Shedd, the former partner of Marshall Field I who succeeded him as president of Marshall Field & Company, and who, under the guidance of Stanley Field founded the Shedd Aquarium, donated an exhibit of 100 bronze sculptures by Malvina Hoffman to The Field Museum. They represent every race, nation, and tribe in the human family (more or less). On January 9, 1933, the first group, Unity of Man, went on display.

In addition to the four figures Henry Hering (1874-1949) made for the corners of Stanley Field Hall, he also made the twelve plaster round lion head shield escutcheons that line it. These are replicas of the marble round lion head shield escutcheon he made for the pediment of the facade of The Field Museum of Natural History.

Christmas at Chicago’s Union Station

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a POLAR EXPRESS display in the Great Hall of Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a closeup of the THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is the headlamp of THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Union Station Company rail car loaded with super-size gifts is part of THE POLAR EXPRESS mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Union Station in downtown Chicago has emblems of Amtrak, Metra, and historic railroad companies whose routes they now operate like Burlington.

Cinemas sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) Helped Design

This is the Pickwick Theatre Building, an Art Deco movie palace and office building erected in downtown Park Ridge, Illinois in 1928.

The architects were Roscoe Harold Zook and William F. McCaughey. Sculptor Alfonso Iannelli, who also worked on the Adler Planetarium, contributed to this building.

In recent years, the Vlahakis family, who’ve owned the building for 50 years, have been able to turn the building into a multiplex by adding smaller theaters around the original auditorium. The latest one, with a screen four times the size of the one in the auditorium, will open in time to screen INFINITY WARS in May, if all goes well.

The Catlow Movie Theater is a cinema that opened in downtown Barrington, Illinois in 1927. The Tudor Revival style of architecture is not confined to the facade of the cinema. As with the Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge, Illinois, sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) played a role in the design and decoration of The Catlow Movie Theater.