The Plastic Toy Takeover
How to deal with disposable toys and maybe wean your kid off plastic too?
Lydia Hyslop
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Doesn’t plastic feel sadly synonymous with kids’ toys? I’ve admittedly had a huge block on tackling this subject; it’s so omnipresent and overwhelming that I barely know where to begin. It feels like we, as a society, are in way too deep. Is it too late to save ourselves from the inevitable fate of succumbing to plastic crap for our kids?
Let’s assume most eco-conscious folks embark on parenthood with beautiful intentions and ideals, aspiring to own wooden toys and heirloom items that feel timeless in baby’s nursery. We want to rest easy knowing that the toys we give our kids won’t seep toxins into their pure little bodies. This is not an outlandish goal, and it’s also something that our parents weren’t concerned with because the information simply wasn’t out there. Our parents didn’t worry about whether or not our toys were labeled “Lead, BPA, phthalate, and PVC-free.” Us 80s kids were happily teething away on actual carcinogens all day and our parents were none the wiser.
When I look back on the “star” toys of my youth, three gloriously plastic things come to mind. There was a tiny She-Ra action figure, a set of Fairy Tales (not gonna lie, I had to Google “plastic bird toy with long hair” — think My Little Ponies but birds), and the end-all be-all best thing Santa Claus ever brought: the Barbie & The Rockers Hot Rockin’ Stage, complete with tiny plastic instruments, back-up singer dolls, and a real record! Lord knows what became of any of these, but I loved them with all my heart.
Perhaps it’s the garish colors, often gender-enforcing, that our kids covet. Plastic beckons from the toy aisle, which every parent covertly tries to spot and then make a u-turn with their shopping cart to avoid before their kid sees it. Or maybe it’s our intentional deprivation of cheaply-made toys that makes our kids want them even more. If you gave any child anywhere the choice between a finely-crafted wooden toy or a cheaply-made, bright plastic toy from the dollar store, I bet you $50 they’d pick the plastic.
My son’s grandparents love to send seasonally-themed plastic toys for every holiday. They usually light-up and come from the bins when you first enter Target — you know the ones. This type of toy holds a kid’s attention for a few good minutes before it either breaks or loses its charm. While the gifter’s intentions are good and meant to translate as love, this only enables that drug-like dopamine rush the child will get from receiving a new toy. When the toy breaks, and they always do, the child is not only distraught but also learns that these toys can just be thrown away and replaced with the next seasonal item.
I worry about the message this sends to our children. Is nothing sacred? Is everything disposable? As I look around at the random stuff that’s made its way into my home, I’m concerned that we’re actively conditioning our kids to behave like tiny drug addicts for plastic. We are raising a generation of super consumers except they don’t have their own money yet and they will beg, barter, and steal to get their grubby little fingers on a hot piece of forbidden plastic. They crave it. They need it. We try our best to shield them from the evils of plastic, but our kids are going to learn it exists from being in public, going to school, or having playdates at a friend’s house.
One way or another, plastic toys will creep into your life. Somewhere along the line, I realized it’s inevitable, so I have begrudgingly accepted my role as a conduit for plastic in the toy chain. It’s out there. It’s coming. And once it has its 15 minutes of fame in your kid’s life, it will go to the plastic pile to die. I honestly might not loathe plastic so much if it were sturdier, but alas, no plastic toy can survive the wrath of a toddler. Here’s how I’m coping with the plastic toy takeover so far:
Alternatives to Playing with Plastic
I have bought a handful of expensive wooden toys for my son and they primarily sit on the shelf collecting dust. Meanwhile, the ultimate toy experience in his opinion is going to Rose’s (the local dime store) and picking out a plastic toy. Everything is terribly cheap in both cost and quality, but to him this is the coolest store in the world. What kills me about it is that whatever he chooses will break the very same day. Yet, we continue this strange ritual, limiting our Rose’s trips to once or twice a year. Desire of the forbidden is real, y’all, and sometimes a mama is just plain desperate.
I have tried to explain to my son why I dislike plastic toys (“they always break,” “they make you frustrated,” “you already have plenty of toys”), but I’m not sure this deters his 4-year-old mind from wanting them. Lately, I’ve been taking a different approach and suggesting non-toy-based play hoping to foster his creativity versus his desire for material goods. I hope that as he gets older, my kid will care about saving the planet like I do. He already loves picking up litter on our neighborhood walks and finding a trash can for it but has yet to equate trash with plastic toys. I would love to hear from fellow parents on strategies that have worked for you and your kiddos!
Secondhand Isn’t Always Safe
While buying secondhand is a great way to combat fast fashion by keeping clothes out of the landfill and extending their life, you do have to be more cautious with thrift store toys due to the presence of heavy metals found in vintage plastics including lead, mercury, and arsenic. Yes, arsenic. Formaldehyde is even found in some compressed wooden toys! The good news is that nowadays so much research has been made widely available (thank you, internet!). Non-toxic parenting blogs are practically an industry unto themselves. As a new mama, I religiously consulted non-toxic listicles, Instagram accounts, and environmentally conscious toy companies (Non-Toxic Munchkin, The Tot, Hape Toys). The resources are out there to help you select safer toys so baby isn’t ingesting small doses of hormone-altering poison every time they play.
Out of Sight (Before You Go Out of Your Mind)
I suggest getting some sort of opaque bin or basket to conceal the plastic toys because they’re an eyesore. Midway through the pandemic, I had a legit plastic toy freakout and ended up converting our office into a room for my son (we co-slept up until then) sheerly to rid our living room of any and all plastic toys. It felt like the walls were caving in on me, and I snapped. So now we have a large basket in our son’s room just for the plastic toys. Nothing in this basket is precious, which makes for easy dumping out and cleaning up. If the basket starts to overflow, I know it’s time to sort through it and choose some of the unbroken ones to donate. Someone out there might want these toys, whether it’s a local preschool, church, or thrift store. Maybe you post your gently used toys to a local free stuff/buy nothing group, or if you’re living rural AF like us, you start one!
Use the Big Kid Strategy
The best way I’ve found to ferry plastic toys to their next location is to tell your child that these old toys are too “baby,” so it’s time to give them to someone else who is younger. This has been working for us since my son was two. I mean, who doesn’t want to feel like they’re the big kid? Honestly, my son has rarely remembered a toy that we’ve agreed to get rid of, but it’s always the ones you try to sneak out that he will remember.
Be a Plastic-Free Gift Giver
To my gifters out there, please think twice before you choose plastic toys. Get creative with that $5 budget and opt for something else. How about a book, even a gently used one from a local bookstore or one from your own child’s collection they’ve outgrown? As for plastic toys that were gifts, literally no one has ever followed up to ask about that one seasonal light-up jack-o-lantern or cheap birthday party gift, further proving that these things really don’t have any value whatsoever.
I would go so far as to say that no plastic toys have an enduring lifespan except maybe LEGOs (which in the future might be manufactured from plant-based or recycled materials). I’ll be expounding on that in a future post, but for now I’ll leave it at this: LEGOs have more or less saved my sanity multiple times, especially as of late, and I know I’m not the only parent who feels this way! That is the one plastic I will get behind.
To the parents out there, Godspeed. Know that your home is just a brief resting stop for these plastic bits of future-trash, and also know that you are not alone. We are all just doing the best we can to be sustainable in a disposable plastic world.
Love & LEGOs,
Lydia
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