Waitrose to ban children’s magazines with free plastic toys

[BobBobBobbin]

Sorry if this has been done already - couldn’t see a thread but this seems to tick so many mumsnet boxes I can’t believe no-one else got there first.

Waitrose is planning to ban children’s magazines with plastic free gifts, because of their environmental impact.

www.thegrocer.co.uk/waitrose/waitrose-bans-kids-magazines-with-free-plastic-toys/654444.article

I’m prepared to be talked round to this as I’m normally very pro measures to improve sustainability but my first reaction was “FFS! Are small treats for children really something that needs to be banned?” I very occasionally buy children’s magazines and we’ve had some decent play value out of some of the ‘plastic tat’ free gifts. The CBeebies numberblocks sets have been played with for hours upon hours.

So AIBU to think banning children’s magazines with plastic free gifts is a step too far?

YABU - this is good thing to do
YANBU - this is OTT

When I was on a tight budget I’d never consider buying magazines with or without tat. Couldn’t afford or justify it. Claiming it’s a poor child’s rate treat is a bit of a stretch

Magazine and tat are sold at the counter of my charity shop for 10p. A car boot sale or charity shop provide better quality items for the price of a magazine and would be environmental.

This is a good thing and will push the magazines to adapt. OK, so we'll probably end up with cardboard tat instead, but at least that's recyclable and degradable.

Probably the Lego ones will stick around, since they come with regular Lego that's durable not 'disposable'.

Probably the least of John Lewis's worries right now

I think I’m slowly being talked round on this.

I rarely buy these magazines and I’d probably buy them more often if they didn’t have plastic tat as I find it off putting in many cases. I tend to choose on behalf of my kids (I bring them home as a surprise) and avoid anything that has a pile of junk attached. So I guess as a result we have a small amount of this tat and what we do have tends to get played with/kept (although admittedly none of it is stuff that will end up anywhere other than the bin eventually).

I can see how if you were buying these more regularly and subject to ‘pester power’ then the amount of waste would be less trivial, and a lot of the magazines do seem to be trying to compete on the quantity of free gifts rather than quality or the content of the magazine itself.

Sadly most cheap free plastic toys like the ones that come with magazines and in happy meals are not recyclable due to the types of plastic and type of glue used in manufacture. It is too time consuming to separate so they end up in landfill.

Plastic certainly has its place in life with good quality toys that can be used for a long time, handed down and recycled well. They are an excellent investment and should not be sneered at but these toys do not fit in that category or even come close to it.

As long as the plastic is recycled, what’s the problem?

The fact that it most likely isn't recyclable (or easily recyclable by kerbside collection) is a pretty big problem.

10 year olds might not like plastic crap but many 4/5 year olds do

There are lots of things many 4/5 year olds like. That doesn't make them OK. There are other options for plastic tat like Poundland if you really want it although they have other things too.

Another thing they need to stop is wrapping magazines in plastic bags which are not easily recyclable. The plastic tat on a magazine is often in a plastic pack itself and then the magazine wrapped in more plastic (craft magazines are actually the prime offender here though and they aren't banning those)

Any small difference we can make is still a difference. The issue here isn't really the plastic tat itself but how our attitudes have changed. With a magazine the prime focus used to be the magazine with an occasional, much anticipated, free gift. Now it is a cheap plastic toy with a free magazine attached.

YANBU. Plastic is great! It's cheap, convenient and lasts for ages.

If we want to save the planet, we need to do things that are actually causing major damage rather than focus on things like plastic. We need to drastically cut the global population - if we had half the people we currently do, it would still be too many. Frankly a billion would be enough. But any plan to meet this target would be shot down before it even started.

Plastic is great! It's cheap, convenient and lasts for ages.

🤦🏻‍♀️

On the fence with this one. Some of the toys are terrible quality- ds used to love thomas and the plastic trains were nowhere near the proper metal ones. They were still played with though.

Otoh, the lego magazines are fantastic quality. Ds reads the comic stories, does the puzzles, and gets more lego! He has a Ninjago Daddy No Legs which he is forbidden to dismantle some of those could be limited edition one day

It doesn't affect me what waitrose does though cos we have a subscription. Getting his magazine in the post addressed to 'master DS' lights up his face.

It's a campaign that was launched by 10 year old Skye - I saw her on BBC yesterday.

I think she's done brilliantly.

It's not killjoy - magazines can still include freebies, just not flimsy plastic tat that we all know ends up in landfill.

PS: her campaign was also about plastic wrappings - so many adult magazines have changed to paper or other biodegradable, and it's high time the rest followed suit.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56456170

They are massive hypocrites. They need to Look at the wastage in the design of a lot of their own products. Take their own brands of crackers (savoury) the actual size of the contents is tiny compared to the box. It's designed to make customers think they are buying more than they should.

It's the same with an awful lot of their products. It would be such an easy way to cut down on wastage.

If I were in charge I'd ban all excess packaging.

Look at the stuff they’re discussing.

Closest Waitrose is miles away but I wish all supermarkets would do this or maybe just the magazines themselves. They’re total tat, it’s unnecessary waste. Same goes for McDonald’s toys.

Yes. My son likes the magazines but the tat just winds up broken under the sofa, its flimsy crap.

As clean beaches are mentioned in the Guardian article, can I ask people to stop flushing plastic (or any!) tampon applicators. Seeing them washed up on beaches is something I could live without.

I’m a bit on the fence. My DC love a magazine and some of the plastic tat off the front has actually been well played with (thinking particularly of little pet/vet sets off the front of CBeebies magazine). Other things break at first use and end up in the bin, but you can usually tell what’s going to be total shit and steer them away from that.

It seems a bit hypocritical when so many of their own products come with layers and layers of plastic packaging; that’s a bigger problem, this just seems like window dressing.

Oh I loved those magazines when my kids were small, used to buy them when we were flying somewhere. Once my youngest, then about 3 had a plastic pretend mobile phone that you could draw on with a plastic pen. He got stopped in security

I bet all magazines will change so that they can sold everywhere

It will go like toys in cereal boxes

I don’t understand why people are so upset, it’s one chain. If you’re so desperate to buy a magazine with a free gift, there are plenty of other shops who will take your money. I think it’s a good thing, we really need to move away from cheap disposable things, especially when there are better alternatives already on offer, and most people’s houses are filled with stuff.

My kids never read the magazines more than a cursory glance through. It was the toys we were buying and we were okay with that. The only thing that will happen now if the magazines will stop being produced.

Someone mentioned kinder eggs. I agree that the toys are terrible. They should do decent collectibles like when I was a kid. I'd give my left arm for a Tiny Terrapin collection again

Absolutely ridiculous. Maybe they should take a look at their own brand packaging, half of it can't be recycled. Plastic toys in magazines are a drop in the ocean compared to all the other products they sell. At least plastic toys get used, unlike wrappings that just get put straight in the bin!

It really puts me off Waitrose tbh.

95% of it is crap that breaks easily and ends up in the bin and the magazines are nothing but adverts to sell more crap. I'd be happy to see it banned.

As someone else has said, these magazines have turned into toys with a free magazine when the intention was the opposite. The toy is usually of poor quality and breaks within a couple of days.

Overall, the package offers really poor value for money - much better to go buy them a proper toy if they want one or a proper activity book/magazine if they want one.

Completely agree that plastic packaging as a whole needs to be looked at too, especially on food items. I feel it will only truly be reduced when a hefty charge is applied to the manufacturer or supermarket

The LOL magazines give my autistic DD a lot of pleasure. Reads them cover to cover and then keeps them, makes collages, uses the stickers, cuts the lettering out to use as headings for homework. She also loves the pens, pencils, and plastic toys.
Happily, I don't shop at Waitrose and if I did, I'd go elsewhere for the magazine.
I may tweet Waitrose asking if they'd like to ban applicator tampons because some people don't dispose of them properly.
There's environment conscious and there's kill joy.