The thrill lasts seconds
The trash lasts forever

We’ve all been there. The thrill of the unboxing is a sensation that is familiar and addictive.

A non-existent market less than 10 years ago, the global blind box economy was valued at US$13.53 billion (S$17.14 billion) in 2024, according to market intelligence firm Zion Market Research. Powering it in tandem is the growing dopamine economy, built on feel-good content and the desire for instant gratification.

Besides Pop Mart, novelty and gift stores have mushroomed across Singapore in the past year, often with piles of blind boxes stacked out front to entice shoppers passing by. Various brands and retailers have also jumped on the trend to create their own.

Yet there is a hidden cost to the phenomenon: the environmental footprint left behind by these plastic-heavy characters. Imagine if all these duplicate figures/toys end up being thrown out? Notoriously difficult and expensive to recycle, most would end up in landfills or, in Singapore’s case, get incinerated. With the only landfill here – on Pulau Semakau – more than half full and expected to reach maximum capacity by 2035, the problem is growing.

Unboxing mania has reached such a fever pitch that blind boxes in Singapore will soon be regulated to better manage gambling inducement risks.

Before you even open the box, your brain is already hooked.

Blind boxes, at their core, operate on a variable reward model, a psychological mechanism banking on a type of reward that is given unpredictably.

“Variable rewards feel more engaging than fixed rewards because uncertainty heightens anticipation and emotional arousal,” says Mr Kenny Low, senior lecturer at Republic Polytechnic’s School of Business.

“When the outcome is unpredictable, the brain releases more dopamine in response to the possibility of reward rather than the reward itself. This keeps attention high and makes each outcome feel more pleasurable.”

That is why the letdown of getting a common or unwanted character rarely kills the habit. “Each unboxing sustains anticipation or near-miss excitement, which makes consumers believe the next attempt might pay off,” adds Mr Low.

The unboxing experience is rarely summed up in a single emotion.

Surprise-based products like Japanese fukubukuro (lucky bags) and gachapon (capsule toys from vending machines) have been around for decades. Why have they never taken off quite like blind boxes?

Surprise-based products are effective now because they sit at the intersection of reward, identity and urgency, says Dr Samer Elhajjar, senior lecturer of marketing at NUS Business School.

“The reward is the reveal and the emotional spike that comes with it. The identity piece is that these characters become taste signals. People carry, display and use them as a kind of personal branding. Then FOMO (fear of missing out) locks it all in, because the category is engineered to feel time-sensitive. Drops, limited runs, pop-ups and rotating series make people feel that waiting has a cost.”

Social media seals it. “You can watch 10 wins in two minutes, which changes your emotional expectations. Second, it socialises the behaviour – unboxing is public, and public behaviour becomes contagious. Then the algorithm amplifies specific outcomes, like secrets, last-box miracles and big emotional reactions. This is why people start to feel that a win is always around the corner,” says Dr Elhajjar.

Mr Low says social media algorithms prioritise emotionally charged content because it drives higher levels of engagement such as views, shares and comments. As a result, users are repeatedly exposed to a skewed reality, in which successful or extreme outcomes appear far more common than they actually are.

“Popular unboxing videos often feature creators opening large numbers of blind boxes in a single sitting, which normalises high-volume purchasing and creates the impression that repeated unboxing is typical and socially acceptable.”

Labubu’s appeal has spread well beyond celebrity culture.

For Ms Denise Lin, 45, blind boxes have become a way to bond with her sisters and in-laws. “We buy these for one another, but not the full set. Just one or two items, as it can be quite pricey,” she says.

The secret edition appears in 1 out of 72 boxes. The odds are against you – or are they?

“Perception drives participation more than maths does. If rare feels attainable, people stay in. If rare feels impossible, people leave,” notes Dr Elhajjar.

“The most profitable zone is that emotional middle, where it feels challenging but within reach. Even people who intellectually know the odds can still feel urgency, especially when they see others winning or hear something is selling out.”

The psychological “cost” of waiting – missing the moment, community conversation and the chance to be early – is how blind boxes convert uncertainty into predictable repeat revenue, he adds.

“People buy because they want closure or completion, and to resolve the tension of the chase. FOMO makes that loop harder to exit because the buyer is chasing a window of opportunity. He or she worries the series will disappear, prices will rise, stock will dry up or the community will move on and he or she will be left behind.”

Mr Jerome Tan, 37, a private-hire driver, lines his car’s rear window with Twinkle Twinkle plushies. But he does not panic buy. “It’s not like I must have it first – that’s really bad, finance-wise,” he says. But a new series still pulls him in. “My girlfriend and I will be excited when there’s one. They’re popular. Just yesterday, we tried to get the new series, but it’s sold out across stores.”

How much would you pay to get the full collection? Let’s find out.

Everyone films his or her unboxing experience, but how often do we see the trash disposal?

For all their cuteness, blind box collectibles carry an ugly truth: The toys and their packaging can quickly end up as mostly unrecyclable waste.

Let’s unbox this, using Labubu as an example.

“The market is still new, but it’s an emerging issue. There is high potential for plastic pollution,” says Assistant Professor Tu Weiming from Nanyang Technological University’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

For a toy to be recycled effectively, it would have to be separated into different parts based on the materials.

Globally, only 10 per cent of PVC is properly recycled, but in Singapore, this is only about 4 to 6 per cent, adds Prof Tu, whose research focuses on environmental biotechnology and waste treatment.

Paints used for dolls’ features are often considered contaminants that prevent the PVC parts from being recycled. “Trying to ‘wash’ the toys with a solvent would cause more harm to water sources,” he says.

PVC itself contains carbon-chlorine bonds that hinder complete environmental degradation; instead, undergoing physical fragmentation and generating microplastics over time, he explains. When PVC items end up in the landfill or improperly disposed, these microplastics take hundreds of years to decay and can contaminate soil, groundwater and aquatic systems, and enter the food chain.

“Evidence suggests that these may induce respiratory inflammation, endocrine disruption and neurotoxic effects,” he adds.

In Singapore, rubbish is incinerated. Burning is even more polluting, as it releases toxic and volatile organic compounds into the air, says Prof Tu. “In Singapore, while incineration plants are equipped with advanced systems to filter most toxic pollutants, the process itself is still carbon-intensive, requiring energy-intensive treatment systems,” he adds. “Burning petroleum-based plastics ultimately converts solid waste into atmospheric carbon dioxide, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.”

The key thing, he stresses, is not the environmental impact of the waste but that of the treatment and incineration of these non-biodegradable materials.

Biodegradable products contain simple, natural compounds – namely carbon, hydrogen and oxygen – that break down into simple molecules like water and carbon dioxide.

The advantage of using bio-based or renewable materials instead is that they originate from renewable biological sources and are potentially closer to carbon-neutral when incinerated, says Prof Tu.

“As blind boxes are still an emerging market, the manufacturing industries have not taken into account the possibility of using environmentally friendly materials to make them.”

Prof Tu suggests that data and transparency from manufacturers on the materials used in the making of blind boxes would be useful for researchers and environmentalists to propose solutions to deal with such waste.

And although the ease of recyclability should start from the source, fans, too, have a shared obligation to consume responsibly, he says. “Maybe the best way is to extend the lifetime of the product – by reselling it or passing it down – rather than trying to recycle.”

Pop Mart declined to comment.

No hype lasts forever. Pop Mart International Group’s shares slid 6.2 per cent in end-2025, wiping out more than US$25 billion in market value, reported Bloomberg in December – signalling waning interest in the designer doll.

If the secondary market is a credible indicator, the Labubu trend is “dead”, a reseller of rare and country-exclusive Pop Mart toys, who declined to be named, declares. He has had to sell his unwanted Labubus below retail price.

“There are people who will still buy it for the fun. But resale is dead mainly for one reason: increased production by Pop Mart worldwide. The main money makers now are country-specific toys like the SkullPanda XG exclusive to Japan.”

Labubu’s stock may have fallen, but in Singapore, collections from Crybaby and Twinkle Twinkle showed rising search interest in the second half of 2025. Rather than a sign of volatility, Dr Elhajjar believes it is merely Pop Mart’s portfolio strategy at work.

He says: “Pop Mart is running an intellectual property studio, not a single-character brand. Which collections gain traction depends on how fast they communicate a vibe, how distinctive they look on a phone screen and how well they translate into social identity objects. If Pop Mart is smart, it will keep feeding the market with fresh entry points, so new collectors can join without needing to understand the whole back catalogue.”