In elementary school a big blue garbage can marked with a circle of arrows showed up at my parents house. We talked about the importance of recycling and doing your part to reduce, reuse, and recycle. While I’ve been a recycler for as long as I can remember (sometimes to a chagrin of my husband who doesn’t want to waste time cleaning out a peanut butter jar if we are essentially just going to throw away) I started caring about it so much more since my kids came along.

I suspect many of us get that way. We’ll do what’s right because we’re supposed to, but we don’t really think or care about the broader picture until we’ve got someone who is really going to benefit or suffer from our actions. Anyway, there is my pitch for recycling. It’s a good thing, and you should do it.

So, after the hundreds of cans and bottles I’ve cleaned out and sent off I was very pleased to be able to see this recycled stuff come full circle (in a more interesting way that a paper box) with a company called Green Toys.

A company that takes recycled stuff and turns it into toys.  How fun is that, and what a great way to motivate your own kids to recycle.  I’m thinking a toddler would happily make sure a milk carton made it into the recycling if they knew it could become a tool set. Then I found exactly that.  A tool set made from recycled milk cartons made by a company called Green Toys. 

They take recycled material and refashion it into toys! I think it’s a great idea and a perfect way to encourage kids to recycle.  “If you put this milk carton in the recycling it can become a toy car,” seem pretty persuasive to me.   

Green Toys has some fun toys on their website that include play food, trucks, tools sets, play flowers, outside games and more. All of them are made out of 100% recycled material, and even the cartons holding the products are 100% recycled and recyclable. I love it! Plus all the products are from stuff that has been recycled and refashioned in the USA, saving on extra fuel emissions and what not. Bottom line, this is a fun way to play and a fun way to help save the earth.

Okay, so I was really excited to find a brand of toys that I could feel so great about promoting but I was curious about what the actual toys were like.

First they were packaged in a cardboard box (recycled of course) and there were no twisty ties or plastic bits to claw my way through, also as soon as I had my toys removed I could drop all the packaging right back into the recycle.

The tool set itself was great. The pieces have a rough texture like a milk carton, but it’s clear that that is by design. The toys were solid and well made. My son had a blast trying to screw the pieces into the side of the tool chest and hauling the whole thing around the house. It was the perfect size for his little hands and while the tools were solid they weren’t so heavy that I was afraid of him causing real damage by hammering things other than the provided nails. He probably spent 15 putting both the screws, nails and screw drivers in the little holes around the tool chest, and he had a great time playing with it.

Green Toys Pros: 

• Environmentally Friendly
• Solid and Well Built 
• Hassle Free Packaging 
• Multiple Color Options (the tool chest, dump trucks and trains also come in pink)

Green Toy Cons:

• Fairly Simplistic Toys
• Not a Huge Variety 
• Fairly Expensive (the tool chest will run you a cool $28)

There are so many toys are made out of plastic these days, if you want to have plastic toys you feel good about check out Green Toys.