A toy story to help save the planet... Now play time is eco-friendly!
A CORK business is making toys more sustainable, as it launches the country’s first toy subscription service.
Clever Tots Toy Club – Ireland’s first sustainable toy membership club, catering for children aged three months to three years – aims to offer a solution to the problem of too many toys, selecting the right kind of toy, and its impact on the environment.
We are approaching that time of year once where children excitedly pore over toy catalogues while making their Christmas lists.
However, children’s toys have a shockingly short lifespan, as figures from Ecobirdy show that 80% of them end up in landfills or the sea after being used for an average of just six months. Furthermore, a staggering 90% of toys contain some form of plastic.
Eco-conscious parents, along with those struggling financially, don’t need to be disheartened, as one increasingly popular solution to the problem is sustainable toy subscription services.
Clever Tots’ monthly toy box delivery includes a set of four carefully chosen, age-appropriate toys, which are replaced each month to avoid fatigue and offer new learning opportunities through play.
Jenel Sanders, who founded Clever Tots Toys with her husband Didier, said the business has already seen ‘an increase in orders as Christmas approaches’.
‘Some of our parent members are getting organised for Christmas a little earlier this year due to toy supply issues as a result of the pandemic and Brexit,’ Ms Sanders explained. ‘Thankfully we have managed to avoid any toy supply issues that many retailers are now facing in preparation for Christmas. Also, all of our suppliers are in the EU or UK so none had to travel very far, which is good for their carbon footprint too.’
At the moment, Clever Tots Toy Club provides a monthly toy delivery for children aged from three months to three years.
Ms Sanders said the ‘toys have been carefully selected from ecofriendly sustainable brands by a child development expert so that they can support children in meeting their social, physical, cognitive and emotional milestones during their first 1,000 days’.
So far both parents and children have been delighted with the monthly subscription boxes, she added. Parents have been over the moon about how the service ‘cuts down on the expense of these toys and the mess they create when the toy box fills up’, she also said.
The children can also enjoy receiving new presents each month, and thankfully, Ms Sanders explained, if a child does become attached to one particular toy, there is no pressure to return it. They can keep it for an extra month or parents have the option to purchase it if they prefer.
‘Cuts down on the expense’