You can toss empty plastic bottles in recycling bins. Now, you can also recycle Barbies, Matchbox cars, and Mega Bloks! Mattel, the company that makes these plastic toys, wants you to ship old toys back to it for free. As part of the new program, Mattel PlayBack, the company will shred those toys into small pieces to reuse to make new products.
A lot of plastic ends up in landfills or the ocean. Plastic can leach toxic chemicals into the environment. Much of it never truly breaks down. Animals can eat plastic or get caught in it, both of which can kill them. Recycling and reusing plastic helps reduce these deadly effects.
Plastic is often made from petroleum, a fossil fuel that pollutes the air when used. Recycling plastic toys could help cut down on this pollution.
Most of the recycled toys so far are dolls, says Pamela Gill-Alabaster, Mattel’s head of sustainability. “Lots of Barbies with mustaches drawn on their faces,” she says.