The Gradual Reduction of Plastic Toys

 by Wilf Brown

a Toy Library

In the UK, hundreds of millions of pounds are being spent on toys every year. Most toys happen to be made out of plastic, because they are sturdy, easy to clean and cheap to manufacture compared to other materials. However, this therefore can assist in ocean pollution, or any other type of pollution, when they are thrown away. They are not biodegradable, which means that they will remain in a natural environment (which can have a negative impact on wildlife), in rubbish dumps, or beaches. In 2019, a plastic toy from the 1950s washed up on a UK beach, still perfectly intact. Given the harmful impact of these non-sustainable toys, surely we should be moving to ban production of them all together?

Some toy companies are gradually beginning to stop production of single-use plastic toys that come in addition to fast food meals or in magazine covers. For example, in 2019, the supermarket Waitrose stopped selling children’s magazines with free plastic gifts on the cover. Some people are even suggesting that all plastic toys should be banned, no matter how sustainable they are, and children should stick to more traditional toys that are made from wood, metal or fabric. These resources can be recycled when they are thrown away. In addition, plastic toys are often required to have batteries to function, which can be expensive and more damaging to the environment when they are thrown away. 

Whilst it is obviously clear that plastic toys damage the environment, in the current economic climate, it would seem unfair to reduce the production of these cheaper toys for families, who are less fortunate, around the world. A compromise might be, such as in Lego’s case, to take steps to make plastic with ingredients from other natural resources, such as their example of sugar cane plants. This is of course provided that production costs are not significantly increased and therefore the cost of the toys won’t be as well. Greater availability of “Toy libraries” would also provide another possible solution.