As a small toy company environmental and ethical issues are very important to us and, and is central to how we make our toys. Whether it is our Dinosaur toys or our organic baby comforters we continue to make progress but how have we done in 2023?
Our story of environmental awareness began with single use plastics. A favourite retailer emailed us an image of the waste left after unpacking a delivery from us. It was horrendous. We had routinely packed all of our toys in their own poly bags as this is what retailers said they needed. However after seeing the sheer quantity of plastic which was immediately sent to landfill we knew that just because things had traditionally been done one way didn’t mean to say they should continue that way. We anticipated some push back but actually it was only a small quantity of retailers who objected and this was far outweighed by the retailers who were happy at the change.
During 2023 we have moved to using recycled stuffing for all of our toys. The majority of material used in the making of soft toys is due to the stuffing so this has had a significant impact on our carbon footprint. The knitted fabric is not yet recycled but we are exploring options to move this to 100% cotton and this will be the major work for 2024.
In 2024 we continued to take individual bags off toys. All of our dinosaurs and dogs now come 24 per bag rather than individually bagged. Next year all our Xmas decorations will also be unbagged. Our wooden toys, which used to be shrink wrapped, are now boxed in recycled card. For 2024 we plan to address our organic cotton toys. It will be harder due to the nature of production and materials used, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.
We have now discontinued kimble tags which are the little plastic hooks which allow toys to be hung in retailers. Some retailers like to do this but not enough to justify all toys have this piece of single used plastic.
We then started to look at where we use single use plastics in our processes. One of our best wins was resourcing to a paper based tape in the warehouse. A small thing but one which significantly reduced our use of single use plastics in dispatching our toys. We also use previously used cardboard cartons rather than buying new. There is no reason a carton can’t be used more than once, and it is a simple and effective way at reducing waste.
We will allow ourselves to be pleased with our progress over our Xmas break, and will then start afresh in 2024. If you have any ideas for ways in which we could cut our use of single use plastic or our carbon footprint please let us know.
