This 12 months, Germans are estimated to spend 4.5 billion euros on new toys – with an influence on the earth and the local weather. A doable various: second hand.
“The children’s rooms at home are full of good toys that are no longer played with, and here they have the chance for a second life in another children’s room,” says Angela Walter. On this present day, the younger mom helps at a toy bazaar in her hometown.
There are three lengthy rows of tables in entrance of her. Used toys are piled up on them: dollhouses, picket practice tracks, giant plastic automobiles, board video games. The assist affiliation of a daycare heart organizes the bazaar within the mom metropolis in Rhineland-Palatinate. The crowd is large.
“Borrowing, sharing, exchanging, repairing and second-hand must become the new normal,” calls for Viola Wohlgemuth from German Environmental Aid (DUH). She wish to see many extra used toys given away in Germany than earlier than.
Expert: Used toys save assets
Wohlgemuth argues with concrete figures: According to the UN Environment Program, the toy trade is probably the most plastic-intensive trade on this planet. Five million tons of plastic are consumed yearly. “That would be a convoy of trucks from the North Cape to Sicily and back again. Just for plastic production,” calculates the round economic system professional at Deutsche Umwelthilfe. She received the numbers from a considerably older report from the UN Environment Program – nothing a lot has modified.
90 p.c of all toys worldwide are actually made solely or partly of plastic, says Viola Wohlgemuth. If you purchase used, it can save you loads of petroleum for plastic manufacturing and in addition chemical substances. It’s significantly prevalent in low cost toys which are manufactured in Asia for the European market, says Wohlgemuth: “Especially in these plastic things, we always have very high levels of chemicals. It’s not just the color, it’s the plasticizers that make it dimensionally stable, that make it UV-resistant.”
Buying new versus shopping for used
CO2 emissions are created with each manufacturing. It is tough to quantify what number of climate-damaging greenhouse gases are produced by world toy manufacturing, says Moritz Jäger-Roschko from Greenpeace. He estimates: “Production and transport account for 80 to 90 percent of CO2 emissions.” You can lower your expenses by shopping for toys which have already been used.
According to Jäger-Roschko, the next usually applies: the bigger the merchandise used, the extra financial savings. And: Whether you purchase second hand regionally on the flea market or on a web-based portal with parcel supply now not makes an enormous distinction in emissions: “The main thing is used”.
Germans pay 4.5 billion euros for brand new toys
The tables are emptying on the toy bazaar within the mom metropolis of Rhineland-Palatinate. Parents wait on the checkout to pay. Annette, an area mom, pays 25 euros for a field full of enormous plastic constructing blocks: “When new, they are very expensive and I can get a lot for my children at the bazaar for little money.”
4.5 billion euros – that is how a lot cash shoppers in Germany are anticipated to spend on new toys this 12 months. This is what the toy commerce affiliation BVS says. Last 12 months it was 4.4 billion. The toys that had been underneath the tree at Christmas 2025 value a median of 168 euros. The 12 months earlier than it was 150 euros. Despite all of the crises, the will to offer presents stays unbroken, says the toy commerce affiliation.
This is what it’s best to take note of when shopping for used toys
The client recommendation heart has put collectively ideas for getting used toys. Second-hand toys fabricated from untreated stable wooden or used constructing blocks fabricated from arduous plastic are due to this fact unproblematic. However, the buyer safety group has issues about older objects made of soppy plastic, similar to dolls or delicate plastic figures. The motive: Until 2006, for instance, dangerous phthalate plasticizers had been nonetheless allowed for use in manufacturing. They can pose a well being threat, disrupt the hormonal system and result in infertility, amongst different issues.
Renting toys: New mainstay for specialist outlets?
How can specialist retailers survive if extra individuals purchased used? Wohlgemuth from DUH sees doable enterprise concepts within the round economic system: “Just as we share our mobility and borrow cars or bicycles, we could also do the same with toys,” she suggests. “How great would it be if we had a well-stocked toy store downtown and I could borrow a high-quality, chemical-free toy there? And if my child is no longer interested in it, I’ll give it back.”
This time, books, board video games and constructing blocks particularly bought nicely on the toy bazaar, says Jessica Kluger from the daycare assist affiliation, which frequently organizes the bazaar. “Wooden toys were also popular this year,” she says. The development on the bazaar is shifting away from plastic, which can be extra resource-efficient. Kluger observes: “People tend to keep things again and pass them on to the next generation. This works better with wooden toys.”
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