What to Do With Old and Unwanted Toys

Are you wondering what to do with the pile of old or broken toys your kids never play with? According to the Yale School of Environment, over 80% of toys end up in a landfill, incinerated, or even in the ocean. To prevent this, learning how to reduce, reuse, and recycle is an important skill to learn in order to protect the environment. By just donating or giving away a toy to the new home, you can ensure the next generation will not only have a new to to play with, but they will also have a healthy planet to live on. Knowing how to responsibly recycle toys can be confusing and difficult. There are a few different ways to recycle or dispose of toys.

It’s unlikely your toys will be accepted in your curbside recycling service within the United States. Toys are usually made up of different materials, such as various types of plastic, cloth, synthetic fibers, wood, metal, and electronic components. This wide range of materials and types of toys makes it difficult to properly recycle toys in bulk. For toys, the best option is to use an outside company or to donate it.

TerraCycle is a company that specializes in making recycling easy. They offer many different options for those looking to recycle old toys. TerraCycle has their own programs that involve buying a box that consumers fill up with old toys, and then mail the box to TerraCycle in order to make sure items are properly recycled.

However, this option can be on the expensive side. Luckily, they also offer a program that is sponsored by large toy companies like Hasbro, V-Tech, and Spin Master. These are free options where you can send your branded toys back to the company they originated from. At no cost to you, you can be assured your old toys will be properly recycled.

Donating your gently used toys are always a great option to get rid of old toys. By giving your unwanted toys to a thrift store or a charity donation center, not only are you freeing up space in your own home, but you’re also giving the toy an extended life and providing many more happy smiles.

One of the the best way to reduce waste is not to purchase the item in the first place. When buying new toys, keep in mind the durability of the toy and how repairable the toy is. Quality toys can be more expensive, but may last through several kids or even last for several generations.

Reducing the quantity of toys purchased over a child’s lifetime is one more way to create less waste and use fewer natural resources. Your used toys can live a long life with multiple families, especially if it’s easy to repair. As we mentioned before, these quality working toys can always be reused as well, whether it be through donation or maybe even giving old toys to family and friends.