Buying non-green toys for your child

Legos: More Than Just a Toy

To make an assumption that, just because a toy is plastic, it is not eco-friendly seems to me to be stretching logic a bit. I have three boys, all of whom enjoy playing with Legos. And, while I do purchase new Lego "guys" on occasion, as the old ones are lost or dismembered, the bulk of our immense Lego collection (in excess of three storage containers) has all been gleaned second hand and all pieces are as good as they day they rolled out of the factory. That said, Legos are in fact more than just toys to a developing mind. Legos teach our children all sorts of eco-relative habits, not the least of which is to build with blocks.

Picture a world of even more scarcity than we experience today, and the necessity to begin constructing homes from straw bales or mud bricks. Now who better equipped to accomplish this task than the multitude of kids who grew up constructing towers, skyscrapers, cars, planes and various monstrosities with re-used Legos. Legos are very expensive and I believe that the Lego corporation is sensitive to this price-consideration and is opting to save the consumer the expense of using recycled paper in their packaging. Lego is also a successful multinational corporation; organizations don't reach a stature of this sort without establishing models to reduce waste and pollution.

We could argue round and round about the case for new paper vs. recycled paper and jobs, forestry, renewable resources, but the issue at hand is child play and the passing down of something as amazing and exploratory as Lego blocks. My grandkids and, hopefully their children will receive the same crate-load of Legos I played with, the tiny hands will snap and construct their own structures with the very same bricks I used to build my first Lego towers. We reuse, we reinvent, and I might say, I learned some of this by playing with Legos. Now if we do this for our kids, passing on ideals through something perceived as a simple toy, then it becomes more than just a toy.

I agree with you Jennifer that toys made out of recycled plastic somehow seem greener than buying second-hand toys made of new plastic. I want to give a shout out to a company that does make all their toys out of recycled plastic. Their company name is actually Green Toys, and they make all their toys out of recycled milk jugs. The toys are beautiful and affordable...And I think they'd meet your standards of what makes a company eco-friendly.