PlasticLess.com

…that would be NOTHING like the ones I used to know. The gifts were often plastic. There was lots of plastic packaging and even many of the decorations were plastic. Bah, Humbug.

If you are about to start your shopping, stop to consider the idea of going the non-gift route. It’s not sacrilegious, as far as I know. If that idea won’t fly, I recommend Lee Valley Tools as a place to buy non-plastic gifts. While you’re there pick up some wooden tree ornaments

Oh and instead of buying a plastic snowman, try making one out of SNOW.

That warning is even more famous than Caution: Coffee May Be Hot, or whatever the cups say these days. I tried to find the warning on google. It turns out that lots of people make jokey photochops about coffee cups.

Both warnings state the obvious.

I wasn’t over indulged as a child when it came to action figures. I remember vividly the times when I got to visit my spoiled suburban cousin who had piles of action figures.

I admit that I was impressed with some of the stuff. I also remember the fact that he was completely and utterly bored with all of it. The people who sell this stuff easily convince kids that the plastic objects are necessary parts of imaginative play. By the time most parents are finished raising kids, they have a pile of anecdotal evidence to refute this fallacy.

Kids can have imaginative play using anything, or even nothing. My kids had a game where they created a pretend religion whose deity was an emerging tulip plant. They got me to make some miniature segments of picket fencing to place around the sacred one.

I am proud to say that I was never even peripherally associated with the purchase of a robotic singing mounted bass. Some of you young people may not even remember how popular these things were. I have to assume that many of them are now taking up space in landfills. Some of them may even be in the ocean.

They are always the first object that I think of when I am thinking about pointless plactic novelty items that should never have existed. Disco Santa is number two on the list. The latest thing from China is a USB drumming Santa. It is awful.

I am hesitant about suggesting Christmas presents because of all the expectations and emotional baggage that exists in most families. The really young would probably get a lot of joy from a wooden farm animal set.

I was inspired by a post over at Eco Child’s Play about wooden blocks. Blocks are certainly a must have toy for early childhood. I would suggest that you avoid painted blocks, especially with vintage used blocks. I used to work at a sawmill and I provided a private school with blocks made from scraps. Maple is the best wood for toys. Aspen doesn’t splinter. I donated a bag of scrap wood that I cut into 4″X4″X1/2″. Kids used this for imaginative play and for arts and crafts.

At home, I had some leftovers from a project that looked a bit like telephone receivers. I sanded them up a bit and gave them to my 8 year olds. We have a delightful family anecdote related to the use of these blocks. The blocks that are pictured here were a very popular item at a school that my children used to attend. They are awesome toys.

This is part of a huge collection of pointless plastic purchases by Chris Reid. I have to admit that I bought a few plastic water guns when I was a kid. They are all in the landfill now. I guess that makes Chris a better person then I am, right?

He is a plastic toy enthusiast. It was just a phase for me. I think it is quite likely that many of his cherished items will be part of the problem eventually. In the mean time, his enthusiasm is probably fueling demand for these things. I want to do my part to dampen that enthusiasm. Here is my proposed alternative to the super soaker. Tell someone that you are going to give them a drive home when it is raining and then don’t follow through. They will get wet. You will have caused it. Not only does this not result in plastic consumption, it also saves on fossil fuels.

Oh, and there is this…

I was stuck in an airport for over 24 hours this week. I wasn’t really confined to the terminal, I took the opportunity to visit a large mall. I have the good fortune of living in an isolated area that doesn’t have huge malls and I was surprised at how alien the mall seemed to me after having avoided them for just a few years. The biggest shock I had was walking into the toy store. It is hard to find anything there that is NOT plastic.

One of my main impressions of the toys in this store chain is that the primary goal in their design is to sell. The post sale use is a distant second. I think the trendiness and lack of real function inherent in the toy industry results in the inevitable disposable quality of these products.

If you have children watching television in your home, they are probably watching a lot of ads for plastic action figures and other toys. I knew a full grown man who owned every single Transformer that had been sold at that time. It may be pretty hard for you to sell your children on something as environmentally friendly as a Corn Husk Doll.

Maybe if you are really creative, you could make some hard sell commercials for corn husk dolls and pay to air them on Saturday morning. Maybe not.

What I want to get across is that your kids aren’t begging you to buy them plastic. The hunks of multicolored plastic are just props for imaginative play. If you want to have happy kids and still reduce your plastic use, why not steer them towards paper card based games?

I have witnessed children creating these kind of games from scratch, complete with complex rules and point systems.

There are also fresh air, sunshine and physical activity as alternatives to buying and playing with plastic toys.