The annoying thing about babies is that they
just keep growing, which means that all of that gear you've bought for them eventually becomes unusable. This is especially true of car seats, which are hard to pass on to other families, since they fall under the category of baby gear that safety-minded organizations like the
American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)
recommend getting new instead of used. (You never know if a used car seat is damaged or recalled, the AAP warns.) But a car seat is no good to anybody sitting in a garage — or a landfill.
Thankfully, Walmart is stepping in with its first-ever
car seat recycling program.
The event is taking place at 4,000 participating Walmart stores from September 16–30.Parents who drop off a car seat at the service desk during that time can feel good knowing that it'll be taken apart, and each little bit of it will be diverted from landfills. But even better news:
Parents who drop off a car seat will receive a $30 gift card, which can be used either in-store or online for more baby items. (Perhaps a bigger
car seat?) The caveats: They're not taking booster seats, and there's a limit of two gift cards per household. It's also worth checking to make sure your local Walmart is one of the participating stores before you go.
For this event,
Walmart is teaming up with TerraCyle, a company that specializes in working with materials that are typically hard to recycle. “Through the Walmart Car Seat Recycling Program, traditionally non-recyclable car seats are now nationally recyclable,” Tom Szaky, TerraCycle's founder CEO, said in a statement. “Through this event, we expect to divert the plastic equivalent of approximately 35 million water bottles from landfills.”
If TerraCycle sounds vaguely familiar, it's because the company has been popping up all over the place in partnerships like these, from working with
Hasbro on recycling toys to helping
L.O.L. fans keep all its packaging out of landfills. Keep up the good, green work, TerraCycle!
