Through a grant we received from Hennepin County (Minneapolis, MN), our group purchased a toy recycling box through the company, TerraCycle.  TerraCycle would take broken and traditionally non-recyclable toys, manually pull out like items (textiles, wood, metal, and plastic), and properly break them down.  This meant no toy sent to them would end up in the landfill.

We had plenty of toys that ended up broken because of general use through our toy library and we knew members had the same problem in their own homes.

We were excited to get started.

Broken toys, missing puzzle pieces, and unusable toys

The box was set up at our toy library and we notified our members of it’s existence.  Our box was filled up fairly quickly.  Members were happy to have the resource!

The box was brought in and weighed.  We diverted 32 lbs of toys from the landfill!  WOW!

We are currently looking into possibly fundraising for another box.  The cost for the shipping and recycling is fairly reasonable, but also something that cuts into our very small budget, so we are hoping there is continued support for getting another box in the near future.

Find out more about their recycling efforts at TerraCycle.  This article gives a good description of how these toy materials are recycled.