Recycle your toy packaging

After buying and removing toys from their packaging, most collectors would keep the back cards or fold the boxes flat to store aside because of the nice pictures or photos on them.  Should you decide to discard your toy packaging, do keep in mind that most of it can be recycled.  Hence before you toss your entire toy packaging into the refuse bin, do check if any parts of it can be salvaged for the recycling bin instead. 

I used to keep the back cards of my X-Men action figures after taking out the toys.  Then 5 years ago, I sent those back cards for recycling when I moved house.  They had accumulated and eventually became too bulky to move, and also because most had repeated pictures on them.

Today I cleared some empty G3 My Little Pony box packaging from my cupboard.  I had used them to store my loose ponies but since each box could only hold 1 pony, I decided to consolidate several ponies into a bigger box and discard the excess My Little Pony package boxes.  These My Little Pony packaging consist mostly of cardboard and soft clear plastic ‘bubbles’.  Whenever I discard the G3 My Little Pony packaging, I would diligently separate the cardboard parts from the plastic ‘bubbles’ to recycle.  I have been doing this for the past 3 years. 

When I started collecting G3 My Little Pony in 2003, it did not occur to me to recycle initially as I was too distracted by the possession of those ponies.  I also kept the loose ponies back into their original box packaging back then.  Subsequently as my G3 herd grew, I threw many boxes away before I recalled that the cardboard parts are recyclable. 

Alas, recycling always take some extra effort.  You need a trusty penknife to slice though all the taped parts to separate the cardboard from the soft plastic ‘neatly’.  If you use force and try to rip them apart, you risk getting cut by the plastic edges.  Besides, the properly separated cardboard parts would fold nicely and fit more neatly into your recycling bag or bin.  After a few rounds, I developed this habit and recycling my toy packaging became second nature to me.

Technically, the soft plastic parts can be recycled.  However in Singapore, only the cardboard and paper materials are more cost effective for the recycling company to collect.  Hence the plastic bubbles have to be thrown away.

My pony collector pal here in Singapore simply throws away the entire toy packaging conveniently down the refuse chute, citing that it is too troublesome to separate the pieces for recycling.  I feet that it is such a waste.  I hope that more toy collectors and other people in general would take the short time to check the items they are throwing away everyday, to see if they can be recycled.  It will definitely be troublesome in the beginning but like all actions, practice makes perfect and soon recycling will become effortless and eventually second nature to do so.