The Eco Toy Co
Hi, I'm Carol and I run Eco Toy Co with my partner Alex. We sell sustainable, fun and ethically made children's toys and games.
From a young age, I’ve been interested in the environment and the things I can do to make a positive change. I think my early interest stemmed from taking part in a Blue Peter campaign run in the late ‘80s/early ’90s that encouraged children to ‘switch off the light when you leave a room’ and ‘turn off the tap when brushing your teeth’. Much to my mother’s annoyance, I plastered our light switches in stickers from my energy saving pack. And much to my disappointment I never received a green Blue Peter badge.
My family's 'make do and mend' attitude has also helped me be less wasteful, it's equipped me with some skills for fixing things up and really made me appreciate the skill, effort and materials that go into making things.
These loose part Wooden Treasures from TickiT are brilliant for maths, creative and open-ended play.
As adults, we've been making lots of changes to the products we use around the house and the lifestyle we lead which has been fairly easy to a point. But after Alex and I had our first daughter we started to really notice how much waste there was when it came to her toys, both in terms of the materials they were made from, the packaging they were in and the short time they were played with. We were also often disappointed at how prescriptive a lot of the toys were and how little room for adaption there was with them. When our second child came along we didn't want to end up in the same place with toys only lasting a few months at a time so we looked for alternatives and though there were a growing number of companies selling beautiful sustainable toys we started to see where we could do things a little differently, by offering sustainable toys on the more affordable end of the scale and providing lots of ideas on how to play with the toys we sell.
Starting things wasn't too tricky as Alex is a super talented web developer who has made lots of shopping sites for other companies and I'm a children's digital product designer and illustrator. We also have two very willing toy testers to put new products through their paces! Teaming these skills with our interests in sustainability and play activities for children led to the creation of our little online shop, Eco Toy Co and our growing 'eco toy play' community.
With every toy we think about selling we look at the materials it's made from, how it was designed and made, where it's coming from, how it's packaged, how we think children will play with it, how affordable it is and the longevity we think it will have. This helps us decide if it's a toy we want on our shelves. And whilst we know not every product we stock scores 100% on all points, we weigh these important factors up.
When you shop online it's often impossible to know what something's going to be packaged in, I've ordered a few eco-friendly products that rather frustratingly have come in unnecessary amounts of non-recyclable packaging. Not all of our toys come packaged from our suppliers how we would like but we don't hide that information or pretend there's zero-plastic involved, we state it in the description. I think being honest and imperfect is better than omitting information or pretending that something is zero-waste.
As a company we are trying to work with our suppliers to help drive change and we've noticed in the past 6 months that they are making positive moves. One of our main suppliers, Janod have recently started working with WWF to produce a special range of toys whose profits help support the fund. They have also made a big commitment to improving their processes, materials and packaging across their other range of products. Seeing these big companies evolve like this is so wonderful and very exciting to be a part of.
When it comes to how we package up orders we created our 'packaging promise' which is to only ever use recyclable packaging materials, including the tape we use to seal the boxes, and where possible we reuse packaging we get from suppliers.
Creating products that are a bit more unique to Eco Toy Co is something we're also building upon. We've recently started Eco Toy Co Play Bundles and we'll be releasing a new one for sale each month. They will feature various toys we sell at a discount, a special little extra item or two, all packaged in a lovely compostable cloth bag. We want people to get the most out of the toys we sell and think this is one way we can help inspire different ways to play. We're thinking of these a bit like a subscription box, but without the waste that is generated from sending people packages each month - families can pick and choose which ones they like the look of by subscribing to our mailing list and keeping an eye on our social channels.
Gruffalo Play Bundle features an official Gruffalo, a Lanka Kade Mouse, Fox, Owl and Snake.
One of the things that we've found difficult in starting out as a small business is that some manufacturers will only work with established shops and/or demand a high minimum order. It's a shame that these big companies aren't doing a bit more to support small businesses but what it has done is force us to look for alternatives, which has often led to stocking far more interesting products that aren't found everywhere else.
As we're both fairly new to running a retail business, rather unsurprisingly we've made a few small blunders so far, like ordering far too many rolls of packing tape. We have many more blunders to come I'm sure, but we're learning from every one!
WHAT WE'VE ACHIEVED SO FAR
Since November 2020 we have set up our online store and continued to expand our offering of fun eco-friendly toys. We've become part of a supportive community of other parents who are also trying to live more sustainably with kids, where we share play ideas and tips.
WHAT'S NEXT?
Aside from continuing to offer more in our range of sustainable toys, specifically looking for more UK makers to stock, we are working to build up our community so that we may reach more families and help them play more sustainably. We want to work more with our existing manufacturers to bring bigger change at the source of production of toys. And eventually would like to produce our own range of eco-friendly play resources and toys.
We'd love you to join our play community, if you're on Instagram or Facebook our account is @ecotoycouk or please feel free to email us directly at hello@ecotoyco.com or sign up to our mailing list for monthly updates, discounts, play ideas and new releases.
Space Station Pop-Out Play Set from Play Press, Designed & Manufactured in the UK from sustainably sourced board and printed using ocean-friendly inks.