A new company called Flexo has designed it’s very own “flexible, bouncy, bendable building bricks.” This is all made possible by the company’s development of a flexible tendon that connects the building blocks together.

Now this means a lot of great things for society, but it could also pose some very serious questions about environmental sustainability. But for now, let’s start with the good.

1. Economically speaking, MORE competition means LOWER prices.

For many years LEGO has enjoyed a near monopoly over building blocks. While it does use high-quality materials in the production of its building blocks, the fact that there have been no serious competitors also gives LEGO the ability to maintain high prices. An avid LEGO builder can spend up to a couple hundred dollars on just one set.

But assuming that LEGO doesn’t buy out Flexo, we could be looking at some consumer perks here. Increased competition means that consumers will now have the choice between buying Flexo or LEGO building blocks. And with increased competition and consumer choice, LEGO will no longer have the power to maintain such high prices.

2. Building blocks with UTILITY.

While LEGO sets may be fun to build and collect, they serve little purpose outside of that realm. With it’s flexibility and bounciness, however, Flexo is changing the game of building blocks. As their Kickstarter campaign video shows, people will be able to build creations that they can actually put to use (i.e. mini jump pads, balls, etc.). With the right creativity, we might be seeing usable bridges or cars made out of Flexo building blocks in the years to come.

But even though Flexo building blocks are a great innovation, we have to consider the negative impact this could have on the environment. Since its 1997 incident in which 353,264 building blocks fell into the ocean, LEGO has been trying to decrease its environmental impact. Cutting back on carbon emissions, however, may not be enough to ebb the negative environmental impact caused by improper disposal of building blocks. Adding more small, plastic pieces into the world’s landfills may not be the best idea. So while the introduction of a new building block company seems great, we must also be concerned with campaigns that work on enhancing the environmental sustainability of this industry. Since LEGO pieces cannot be recycled in the traditional sense, the company has set up a donation program called BrickRecycler. This program, however, does not solve the issue of pieces ending up in landfills, never to disintegrate. A few years back, a company named Ecomat did create building blocks out of sustainable materials, and perhaps this should be a precedence for both LEGO and Flexo to look toward.

While Flexo is still in the start-up phase, the potential benefits that this company offers consumers are amazing. And while not much discussion has been given toward the topic of environmental sustainability, the company is very much interested in receiving feedback from the community on its social media sites. So why not send them your ideas via Facebook, Instagram, or Youtube for creating sustainable, flexible building blocks? After all, as Flexo says on its Kickstarter campaign, “imagination is the only limit.”