Wooden Toys and the Environment

Natural wooden toys have been around for many centuries, be it a child's rocking horse or the spinning top, just for examples. Recently they have started to make a comeback in children's play, maybe due to being able to carve with more precision using up to date technology, which makes childrens wooden toys look more realistic, they also have less impact on the environment compared to the petroleum based plastic and rubber toys of today. Now that the environment is at the forefront of the news, being at least once a week, the natural wooden toys have clear advantages over plastic.

The trees that are felled for the natural wooden toys are replaced by sustainable forest and are managed to this end.

Where as plastics made from oil based bi-products, have high impact in manufacture for the environment and the oil cannot be replaced. There is also the disposable aspect of natural wooden toys.

When natural wooden toys are sent for recycling they are made mainly into woodchip which is used for walkways around parks and woodland areas.

It can be used in the garden too as a weed inhibitor if placed on top soil around borders.
It is also none toxic and harmless to children and animals.

Natural wooden toys and wood in general is not going to landfill sites so as to prevent methane build up and to use less landfill area.

Plastic however may take fifty to eighty years to decompose and in some cases it never will.
Petroleum-derived plastics are designed not to be biodegradable and burning them releases toxic chemicals into the environment.
The future looks good for natural wooden toys, they last for years and so they can be passed on to future generations, which is in itself another environmental advantage.