No doubt kids’ Christmas lists this year, as every year for the last few decades, will be calling for the latest must-have Barbie and Action Man equivalents for 2008. But with ‘toxic toys’ having hit the headlines this year – Mattel recalled more than 19 million toys manufactured in China earlier this year for a range of reasons, from unsafe magnets and lead-based paint – and the increasing number of unsustainable plastic toys and those with electrical components, it does make you want to seek out more eco-friendly alternatives.

Ethical columnist Lucy Siegle muses on just this and believes that the toy industry is capable of reform: in 1997 study of 71 toys from 17 countries found they contained high levels of phthalates (a plasticiser linked to childhood asthma and reproductive disorders). Emergency legislation was brought in to ban phthalate use in baby products such as teething rings. However, phthalates can still be used in toys for over-threes, except in California, where Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has banned them in all children’s’ products from 2009.

Short of moving to California and until legislation follows suit here, the best thing to do is to track down some ethically sustainable toys for the little ones. You can find toys with certified ethical standards at www.toys-to-you.co.uk and wooden toys at www.holz-toys.co.uk. And at Your Tomorrow, we’ve got a great cardboard playhouse, free from bleaching chemicals and plastics and sourced from recycled materials and is biodegradable – perfect for playing house or doubling up as a space capsule! We also have an air engine racer which is powered with a hand pump and handcrafted papier mache animals, made from recycled paper, which the kids can paint and decorate themselves. Enjoy!

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 2nd, 2007 at 9:24 pm and is filed under Eco-shopping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.