Does anyone know where I can (or if I can) recycle old broken toys?

[DirtyGertiefromnumber30]

Just had a mahooosive clear out of old stuff, the decent things went to charity but is there any where I can get rid of all the old broken plastic toys?

Don't know, but bumping in case anyone else does. I'd like to know too. What happens if you just put them in the same recycling as, say, plastic bottles?

dont know peaches. Im not sure toys are the 'right' kind of plastic iykwim. Im going to phone the council on mon so i'll let you know what they say!

btw - im in cardiff too!

Hi Gertie, do let me know what they say, if you don't mind. I've stuck stuff in the green bags before now thinking "well they hand sort it so they'll just take it out if it really can't be recycled" Dunno if that works, or if it's just passing the buck.

Its an interesting question about passing the buck - I spend hours surfing the net looking for ways of recycling particular items, but it would make so much more sense if I could give these to a tip, recyling service or charity shop who knew what to do with them.

I was very disappointed by an item on radio 4 when one of the major charities were complaining about the goods left at their shops that werent good enough to sell. I've worked in a charity shop sorting goods, and passing them on appropriately to somewhere that could use them would be far more interesing work than sticking a (far too high) price on something and putting it in the shop. I'd love somewhere I could drop unwanted stuff, and be sure it would be used somehow - freecyle in a shop, I suppose.

I always worry about this one with clothes - if you bung a tatty t-shirt in the clothing bank, is that good (passed on to textile re-cycling) or bad (clutter which has to be sorted from saleable stuff & binned).

I think about this all the time - not just broken toys but things like my avent sterilizer which is a bit discoloured, i.e. not saleable (or freecyclable), and old stained baby clothes, like white babygrows with orange stains down the front or pulled out of shape or things that are a bit frayed. They're not good enough condition to be sold, but definitely useful to someone. What do I do with them?

Wouldn't it be great if someone set up a charity where we could donate this kind of old stuff, and they could fix things up, and pack it and send it off to women's refuges, or hostels for the homeless, or developing countries, or something, so that it could be used by people.

I actually think there would be quite a market for people getting rid of things like this. I have a box of broken toys, most of which could definitely be fixed, and loads of old miscellaneous baby things which I would so happily donate.

Maybe when my youngest is a bit older I will start something up... maybe... (hoping that someone gets there before me)

sorry that was a bit off-message! x