Earth-Friendly Boredom Busters to Celebrate 50 Years of Earth Day!    It’s the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and this year’s theme is Climate Action. We can use every day to teach the importance of conservation to help make our world greener, brighter, and healthier. We’re all in a worldwide crisis, but we still can’t stop seeing the bigger picture here. As we stay home, safely social distance, and flatten the curve, I have some fun toys to keep kids busy, but also lend to reducing our carbon footprint. At this year’s New York Toy Fair, the majority of my appointments this year were discussing how toys were going to change a lot from production to the way it’s marketed—less waste, even higher quality, and more thoughtful packaging. As with all Green Toys™ products, the Cargo Plane, Fire Plane, and Shape Sorter Truck are made in the USA from 100% recycled plastic with no BPA, phthalates, or PVC and are responsibly packaged with recycled and recyclable materials printed with eco-friendly inks. Eco-Friendly Plastics that Encourage Eco-Mindful Play Green Toys are my go-to toys! They are well made, made in the USA, and are just so much fun! With cool varieties like tea sets, haulers, and even themed book sets—there are plenty of ways to pretend, play, and reduce your carbon footprint! At Target, you can get an additional 20% off via the Target Circle app right now! Walmart is also sharing 35% for toys by Green Toys all month long! More about these great products on my blog! Fellow Disney fans also note—they’re coming out with Disney Green Toys soon—I can’t wait!!! You can find them on Amazon, too!       MGAE geniuses behind Little Tikes, L.O.L. Surprise, and more amazing toy lines promise to deliver products that are more mindful of an eco-friendly world. In 2019, L.O.L. Surprise collectors could turn in their packaging waste to TerraCycle, and continues this initiative today. Isaac Larian, CEO of MGAE promises that "Beginning 2021, the entire L.O.L Surprise! packaging line will be completely degradable."       Little Tikes will now be launching a Go Green line of products that have that same Little Tikes high quality, high playability we love, but will also reduce the company’s carbon footprint. MGAE’s answer to this crisis of toy waste is their new patent-pending compound that breaks down plastic in landfill conditions. Larian also adds that "Beginning 2025, MGAE will only manufacture products that will degrade when disposed of properly."       Currently, MGAE is working to provide PPE for COVID-19 support via its Operation Pac-Man initiative. This company does so many wonderful things for its community and fans!             Little Tikes Go Green! Playhouse encourages pretend play and teaches children the power of energy conservation and environmental awareness by means of a water bottle sunlight, real garden, and even a water collection barrel. Amazon         LOL Surprise Lights may be the last series with the iconic ball. The latest leaks of the newest series features new eco-friendly packaging, and less waste. Find products by MGAE on Amazon, Walmart, and Target.   Mattel/Fisher-Price is taking the eco-initiative and turning their widely popular baby toy line into a stepping stone to lowering their carbon footprint. Not only are they using sustainable products but they’re using really cool materials!       Fisher-Price Baby’s First Blocks bundle and the iconic Fisher-Price® Rock-a-Stack® have been produced using sugarcane-based plastics! They hope to produce 100% recycled, recyclable or bio-based materials in both its products and packaging by 2030. Mattel has also donated their production line to producing masks and more PPE to help support the frontline employees during the COVID-19 crisis.       Fisher-Price Rock-a-Stack & Baby's First Blocks Bundle is not available yet with the new material, but this would be the sets that you can see being transformed into 100% eco-friendly toy!         ZURU is a company that knows how to party, and they just announced something to definitely celebrate! Their widely popular Bunch O Balloons starting in 2021 will be 100% certified recycled plastic with TerraCycle. How cool is that?       You can also reuse a lot of their packaging like 5 Surprise for example, the segments can be turned into little display shelves for toys thus reducing the carbon footprint! Find their whole line of toys and party products on Amazon, Walmart, and Target!       Bunch O Balloons Slingshot (3 Bunches of Bunch O Balloons) is great to keep kids busy outside. Who knows how long we have during this shelter in place? Why not get wet and have a blast while sheltering in place? Find this awesome set on Amazon! Hasbro already has pledged to reduce their carbon footprint by removing plastics from their packaging. They also teamed up with TerraCycle to accept donations of well-loved toys and games. The toys are then transformed into the beautification of outdoor play spaces like park benches, and flowerpots. Hasbro hopes to phase out plastics from their packaging entirely by 2022.       You can find Hasbro products on Amazon, Walmart, and Target. Be sure to add in Play-Doh, plenty of board games into your Boredom Busters collection.

Eco-Friendly Plush

            Wild Republic announced in 2019 that they would be producing a 100% eco-friendly plush called, Eco-kins Ecokins are made of 100% recycled materials —plastic bottles to be exact, which is an amazing technology. They are very soft, and come in a variety of wild animals and mythical creature. Swipe to see some fun rubber duckies too- a peacock, skunk, and unicorn add a lot of storytelling during bath time and pool time. We love their rubber duckies! Find Wild Republic products on Amazon like this cute Stuffed Leopard.       Headstart Toys is known for making awesome toys - a lot of our favorite toys are by Headstart, so when they announced that they would be creating a fully sustainable plush toy line, I was not surprised.   Re-softables are super cuddly and totally eco-conscious. Did you ever think that your bottle of water can turn into a super cuddly and cute plush toy? Re-softables are revolutionizing the plush world with a 100% recycled line of plush toys - cuddly mini koalas, unicorns, kitties, pups to medium and large plush that are comforting to children and good for our beautiful world. Each Re-softables has a recycle symbol on its tush and what looks like to be the lid had been turned into a tag shaped as the recycle symbol. The fur is very soft, the colors are earthy yet bright, and would be perfect for Easter or any other occasion. Headstart Toys is also changing the way they produce their other toys lines and this is a very big step in the right direction.         Hairdooz are a fun and exciting new doll line that encourages pretend-play with the packaging and the doll! You just simply recycle the outer wrapping, plastic ties, and used sticker sheet and keep the rest. Perfect boredom buster! Find Hairdooz and other toys by Headstart on Amazon, Walmart, Target, and even at Five Below!   Aurora World makes 100% eco-friendly plush. With their licenses spanning from Dr. Seuss's The Lorax to Breyer to the adorable show on Netflix Yoo-Hoo, Aurora World quickly captures the essence of cuteness! They are known for their adorable plush that can be found on shelves from Zoo and Aquarium gift shops to flower shops to the toy shelves into your kid’s heart.   They made efforts starting in 2018 to reduce their carbon footprint by making small changes to their plush toy line. Now their plush will be 100% sustainable even down to the eco-friendly recycled biopolymer pellets inside the plush! I love their Shoulderkins and licensed plush! Find Aurora toys at Walmart and Amazon like this adorable Turtle Shoulderkins on Amazon!    

Toys with an Eco-Friendly Message

  Jay at Play is launching Super Cuties a new toy line featuring adorable babies with superpowers! Not only are these toys just adorable, but they will also convey important messages about environmental awareness. Their plans are to focus on saving humankind from villains all while saving the planet, and spreading awareness of how important kids' roles are in saving the environment too! Plus, these dolls are just so adorable and perfect for pretend play that they would make great teaching tools!   Playbrites use very little packaging to draw the consumer in! This toy has multiple functions as its a night light, a mini disco light, and a buildable toy that can be mixed and matched with other Playbrites!   Boxy Girls are a fun collectible doll line that promotes pretend play! The packaging is so beautiful that I actually keep everything it comes with, I just recycle any plastic pieces which are just ties to keep the doll in place. Boxy Babies will also be coming out later this year with larger packaging, and dolls that are bigger to hold. The packaging is encouraged to be kept as it turns into a high chair for the baby. Find Jay at Play products on Amazon, Walmart, and Target.  

Sustainable Wooden Toys

    HABA is the industry leader in sustainability as they have spread environmental awareness with their toys for many years. They only work with wood suppliers that are PEFC* certified, and only use beech and birch woods from sustainable forestry. HABA cares from their core—their environment awareness starts with their employees to the very hands of the child playing with their awesome toys.   *PEFC = Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification       Bonita Garden is a peg stacking toy that is not only fun to play with but also really beautiful!      Zooing Around Large Playset is a large playset with animals and even a zookeeper to encourage open-ended play. The whole package is the playset!     Le Toy Van is a firm believer that is “wood is good,” Le Toy Van is reducing our overall carbon footprint by creating thoughtful toys made from re-purposed Rubberwood trees that have reached the end of their life. Their products run the gamut from busy toys to tactile toys that facilitate pretend play and expand the imagination! Dollhouses with intricate details, toys for a baby that rattle and shake, and all made from sustainable wood!   Find Le Toy Van products on their website and on Amazon - like this adorable Daisylane Holiday Camper Van. Toys With Less Waste and More Play   LEGO is the perfect boredom buster, and they are also the pinnacle of sustainability as they are all compatible with each other, and have been a generational toy—sanitize and hand them down to the next kid. LEGO’s functionality, durability, and overall fun factor hold their value as the industry’s top toys for sustainability. There is a great selection on Amazon, Walmart, and Target.   Check out the latest Star Wars LEGO sets that are perfect for display and play!    

LEGO Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Resistance Y-Wing Starfighter

  The Mandalorian and The Child Razorcrest LEGO Star Wars: The Mandalorian The Razor Crest 75292 Building Kit, New 2020, Amazon Exclusive (1,023 Pieces)       Basic Fun! Toys has a great line of Tonka trucks that will encourage kids to dig in the dirt and get to know Mother Nature more closely. You can find them on Amazon, Walmart, and Target.         Check out the Metal Movers Tonka trucks line that is perfect for pushing rocks and bits of grass - making way for some pretty flowers!     Playmonster has a lot of toys that I found to be very eco-conscious - not only are they big on fun, but they are big on being thoughtful with their toys! Playmonster's Fuzzikins are adorable figures that are flocked and can be decorated over and over again with the included washable markers. All you have to do is rinse them off, wipe clean, dry, and enjoy again. Fuzzikins encourages imaginative play, so even the packaging is used to create an adorable world for the Fuzzikins. My Fairy Garden encourages kids to want to garden, and each set includes everything you need to create a magical world for the fairies. Kids can learn about the wonders of plant life and the importance of water conservation. The My Fairy Garden Nature Cottage includes a water collecting barrel that connects to a simple piping system and it collects the dripping water to re-use!     Fuzzikins Cottontail Cottage uses the entire package for play! Cut out extra characters, color the figures and wash for extended play, and more! Find this set on Amazon!   My Fairy Garden has a wide selection of sets! One in particular that I love is one we just unboxed which included a piping system to collect the water that drained from the soil. This is a great way to teach water conservation! If you're looking for something smaller, but still teaches about gardening and gives the a great starter for eco-conscious homeschooling lesson, then check out the Unicorn Garden Paradise on Amazon. Find Playmonster products on their website, Amazon, Walmart, and Target.   Skyrocket encourages fans of their Blume dolls line to reuse the packaging for gardening! The packaging container is not only for great shelf display, but can be used as a home for the doll, and even used as a flowerpot. You can find exclusive sets on Amazon with extra pieces for more fun!     Blume dolls are adorable dolls that live in flowerpots! The company encourages kids to use the package as the doll's home. You can also use it as a neat flower pot! Amazon Baby Pop is my favorite toy! This toy has about zero waste, recycle the wrapper, and used sticker sheets, and then you can keep everything! Blume House is a full playset that is just magical from top to bottom! Again there is very little waste with this toy! The same premise and concept of environmental awareness is encouraged. Find Blume Dolls and Blume Baby Pop on Amazon, Walmart, and Target.     Just Play Products' encourages pretend play and brings kids (and even parents, too!) into a world of joy and imagination! Their line of Ryan's World toys blows me away! Ryan's World safes, in particular, are a full-on playset with a unique storage system. This set encourages open-ended play where they can unbox surprises that can be used for hours of pretend play. You throw away the wrapping, and keep the rest! The new Ryan's Mystery Playdate Ultra Mystery Box is a full playset once opened leaving very little waste.   Just Play also makes Hairdorables, a really neat line of dolls with big hair and positive attitudes. Their latest Scented Series got a packaging revamp where the collector keeps the container to store their doll and accessories. You just have to recycle the blind bags and sticker sheets, and keep the rest! Find Just Play products on Amazon, Walmart, and Target.   IMC Toys makes adorable babies and other cool products. Their Cry Babies are very popular, and the miniature versions, Cry Babies Magic Tears, actually has great play value and minimal waste once unboxes.       The Cry Babies bottle houses and pet houses are adorable figures that cry when they are fed. Each of the bottle houses includes accessories for a fun unboxing experience. You just discard the wrapper and used the sticker sheet, and keep everything else! Get the 3-pack on Amazon for the ultimate in boredom busting! Find Cry Babies on Amazon, Walmart, and Target. Do you have any more suggestions on how to bust boredom in a more eco-friendly way? Let me know in the comments below! Sharing is caring, too!  

When it comes to going green, consumer products have led the movement in the kids industry. Toycos got the ball rolling early on being more environmentally friendly, with major players like Hasbro announcing initiatives as early as 2010.   And while those first programs focused on reducing the amount of paper and plastic used in packaging, more recently licensees and manufacturers are turning their attention to baking in an eco-friendly ethos into the very DNA of their brands.   Nickelodeon is taking this tack with its consumer products strategy for YouTube star Isabella de La Torre (known as La Bala).   Cristian Cabero, Nick’s SVP of consumer products and location-based experiences, says his team took inspiration from the ways in which de La Torre works green products into her everyday life when they began developing the CP range.   For example, she travels with a reusable cup to avoid single-use plastics, so Nickelodeon is aiming to create products that are similarly sustainable, as well as reducing the amount of packaging used for the entire line. These efforts aren’t designed to stand out—being eco-friendly should now be assumed and something La Torre’s fans expect from their purchases.   In fact, a 2018 study from research firm GreenMatch found that 72% of Gen Z consumers would spend more money on a service if it was sustainably produced, and those same respondents also reported a strong preference for switching to brands with sustainable initiatives. The study also found kids are willing to boycott companies that do not align with their values. And these stats came before millions of people (Gen Zers among them) protested for climate change solutions in September last year. What’s more, a 2019 report from Research and Markets found kids have a direct spending power of as much as US$143 billion, and an indirect spending power of US$600 billion. That’s a lot of reasons to go green.   Initial categories for La Bala’s consumer products program will include apparel, accessories, publishing and back-to-school, with the first items scheduled to hit shelves in Mexico this summer. By the end of the year, Nickelodeon plans to expand throughout LatAm and launch additional categories like bedding and electronic accessories.   De La Torre first learned about environmental issues and sustainability through social media, she says. “It’s unbelievable how many things are happening because of climate change, and people think it’s normal. We have to work now, and I’ve been using my voice to spread awareness.”   But de La Torre’s entire life doesn’t revolve around environmental efforts. She’s like most teenagers, which means her time is split between a number of interests.   “There are a lot of things she’s passionate about,” says Tatiana Rodriguez, Nickelodeon’s SVP of programming and creative strategy. “She also loves music and art, so we’re working to incorporate all of those things into the products [with equal importance.]”         The biggest obstacle, Cabera says, is waiting for the technology behind manufacturing processes to catch up to the company’s (and de La Torre’s) aspirations. “There are limitations,” he says. “We must deliver a good-quality product at a price that is accessible to the consumer.”   Even with tech enabling more eco-friendly products, this level of environmental integration isn’t easily achievable for every toyco. For those who aren’t yet ready to go fully green with a new range, there are other options.   New Zealand-based company Zuru, for example, is making incremental changes to its Bunch O Balloons (pictured) brand after being criticized for generating plastic waste. The product features balloons with self-sealing stems that allow kids to quickly and easily fill up—you guessed it—a bunch of balloons at once.   “The balloon pieces aren’t able to be put in all curbside recycling because they’re latex,” says Zuru’s global marketing director, Renee Lee. “We looked at how we could mitigate the impact we’re having, and that’s where the idea came about to partner with TerraCycle.”   The New Jersey-based company allows consumers to dispose of their Bunch O Balloons stems, bags and balloon pieces by mailing them in to be recycled. The packaging materials, for example, are melted into hard plastic that can be remolded into new products. The Zuru team is also aiming to change to 100% certified recycled materials in 2021.   And though a brand like Bunch O Balloons may not easily lend itself to environmental efforts, sustainability can become a founding pillar of new properties. Cuddles the Sloth, an upcoming addition to Zuru’s portfolio, is a prime example.   Instead of hard mechanics, the interactive pet features pressurized air flowing through tubes to create hundreds of movements including hand-holding, singing and sneezing. Zuru engineered the tech in house, and—besides a small battery pack—the product is truly plush, free of many of the non-recyclable materials traditionally associated with interactive pets.   Cuddles has been in the works for five years, and Lee says that in 2019 as the team was aligning its strategy for the launch, wildfires were raging across the Amazon rainforest.   Because sloths live in rainforests in Central and South America, Zuru partnered with One Tree Planted to include codes in the packaging that will allow kids to go online and plant a tree in the rainforest. (It costs Zuru just US$1 for the organization to plant a new tree.)   “It wasn’t just about giving money back to plant these trees,” Lee says. “It was about engaging the children who purchase this toy in the message.”

  LOS ANGELES: Leading toy and consumer products manufacturer ZURU Inc, announced today the Bunch O Balloons Recycling Program powered by a long-term strategic alliance with the innovative recycling giant TerraCycle.   The partnership encourages consumers to think 'green' and recycle 100% of their used balloon plastics and packaging. Beginning September 1st 2019 all ZURU Bunch O Balloons products in the USA, Canada, U.K., Australia and New Zealand will be fully recyclable. Consumers will be able to ship or drop off used Bunch O Balloons packaging, balloon pieces and fast-fill stems - at TerraCycle recycling stations, where they will then be processed and recycled into new materials. Taking steps to make our products more sustainable is a top initiative especially when it comes to left-over balloon latex and packaging from our Bunch O Balloon brands, said Anna Mowbray, COO & Founder, ZURU. Through our partnership with TerraCycle, we're providing consumers a simple way to recycle material, reduce the amount of landfill plastic around the world and produce recycled materials. TerraCycle and ZURU will make it easy for consumers to collect all their ZURU Bunch O Balloons materials after use, pack into any available box, print off their shipping label after signing up and then simply ship out or drop off to be recycled. We're thrilled to partner with ZURU on their Balloon Recycling Program, said Global spokesperson Tom Szaky, TerraCycle CEO. Together, we are working to encourage consumers to take action to reuse and recycle waste instead of incinerating or landfilling it. This moves waste from a linear system to a circular one, allowing it to keep cycling in our global economy. The multi-market TerraCycle program, is one part of ZURU's 10-year sustainability program to rethink how they design new and existing products, reduce usage of plastics in items while still delivering a top quality experience and how they encourage recycling at all touchpoints. For example the company consciously built sustainable practices into ZURU Bunch O Balloons Self-Sealing Party Balloons, the latest addition to the category-leading Bunch O Balloons brand, ensuring the fast-fill stems make all party balloons reusable. Bunch O Balloons Party allows consumers to fill, tie and string 40 party balloons in 40 seconds. There is no more blowing, no more tying and no need to add ribbon or string. Simply attach the balloon stems to the Electric Party Pump and press go. Additionally, Bunch O Balloons Party can also be filled with helium. ZURU also encourages safe use of party balloons and advises consumers not to release balloons, especially helium, into the atmosphere.