Natural Toys Can Help You “Choose to Refuse”
Maybe you’ve heard of the “Choose to Refuse” challenge which calls on us to give up single-use plastic for the month of July. Our family has gone through fits and starts with keeping plastic out of our house and out of the waste stream, but it can be very hard. Whether it’s toiletries like toothpaste and shampoo or the packaging for most food items, plastic can be hard to avoid. Its pervasiveness reflects how “cheap” it can be to produce; that is, it seems cheap until you think of the millennia necessary to create the oil to manufacture it or the centuries and centuries that it will be here. While we aren’t perfect, we do our best to choose products that meet the following criteria:
- Repairable: Even the best made wooden toys can be damaged in the course of play or through abuse. However, even when damaged, they are often repairable. With wood glue, a little sanding and a touch of oil (and some patience), most wooden toys can serve generations of play. On the other hand, a plastic toy will only take so much use before the plastic is too distressed to handle normal play.
- Biodegradable: When a toy made of natural materials is beyond repair, whether a well-loved doll or a valiant knight, you can rest easy that it can be returned to the environment and eventually become soil. We know even the best-made toys cannot last forever, and we take comfort in the knowledge that nature knows how to reclaim them.
- Long-lasting: Even when we’ve had to make compromises in the choice of materials in order to supply a particular kind of product, we’ve done our best to choose items that can be passed down. A case in point is the costumes that we offer. United States safety regulations mandate that such items meet certain requirements, the net result of which is that they are almost always made of synthetic materials. Therefore, we’ve picked the highest quality, most durable of such items to offer you. They may cost a bit more, but they will hold up and should last through multiple children.
It may seem that our individual actions are insignificant in the face of the environmental challenges we face, but we pledge to continue to work to bring you the kinds of products that will make it easier to do your part. Only by working together can we leave our children and grandchildren the kind of planet we want them to inherit.