Author: Zainab Iqtedar
When movies or toys gain cultural significance, manufacturers quickly seize the opportunity to profit from their popularity. But this often leads to a lot of plastic waste. For example, after the first season of The Mandalorian in 2020, there was a shortage of Baby Yoda toys.
With the release of the Barbie movie this week, many people might buy more Barbie dolls, which usually sell around 60 million each year.
Toys make a lot of plastic waste, more than any other things people buy. Sadly, not many toys are recycled because they have different kinds of plastic, metal, and electronics mixed together. When kids don’t want to play with toys anymore, those toys are thrown away in landfills.
Making just one Barbie doll is bad for the environment. Before the U.S. and China had a trade argument, Dongguan in China made one out of every three Barbie dolls.
Scientists figured out that each Barbie doll, which weighs around two hundred grams, causes half a kilogram of carbon emissions from making plastic, building, and bringing it to stores. On average, for every kilogram of toys, there are four and a half kilograms of emissions.
All these emissions together are a big problem. Pollution from making plastic is going to be worse than pollution from coal in the U.S. in about seven years.
Although completely banning plastic toys might be extreme, we should make the toy industry more eco-friendly to protect the environment for our kids.
Toy companies can use materials that produce less pollution, create more efficient supply chains, and design toys to be taken apart easily and weigh less, which reduces pollution from transportation. They should avoid making toys with batteries that can become electronic waste.
Mattel started a program in 2021 where people can recycle old barbie dolls, which is a good step. But governments need to do more to encourage the use of eco-friendly materials and help with recycling. Even though brands like Lego are starting to use plastic made from sugarcane, it will take time to really make a change.
Video games are more popular than plastic toys among older kids, which is better for the environment. But video games also create electronic waste.
For parents and grandparents, not buying toys at all is hard. Try to find toys that last a long time and use creative materials. Buy used toys and ones that can be recycled easily. There are also toys made from plastic taken from the ocean.
Cleaning up might become easier for parents and better for the Earth. Mattel’s plan to use 25% less plastic in packaging by 2030 and only recycled materials by 2030 is a good start. If the whole toy industry keeps making progress and governments help, we can reduce plastic pollution from toys and still let kids use their imaginations.
In conclusion, plastic toys are generally bad for the environment, but they don’t have to be. When initiatives like Lego’s sugarcane plastic and Mattel’s recycled plastic dolls are in place, it leaves little room for excuses for other toy companies. In order to create a more sustainable world for our future generations, consumers should call for big companies to adopt sustainable practices and help establish a greener future for us all.