A bright plastic bucket, a colourful spade… seemingly harmless elements of a fun day at the beach, building sandcastles under the sun. Sign me up! But what happens when these toys are left behind, contributing to throwaway culture, or unexpectedly washed away by a rogue wave? Discarded plastic beach toys are often collected in large quantities during beach cleans. Aside from being out a few pennies, when left as litter, these plastic toys often end up polluting our oceans and harming marine life.
Once these toys are abandoned on the beach or get lost at sea, they become the newest additions to the hundreds of trillions of pieces of plastic littering our oceans. The processes of photo-degradation (breakdown from UV radiation) and mechanical weathering from the ocean’s waves, then further breaks down these abandoned plastic toys into smaller fragments, which releases toxic chemicals into the marine environment, such as BPAs and phthalates. Marine wildlife can then get caught in or injured by these plastic remains. Due to their colourful nature, animals are likely to mistake them for food and consume them, leading to malnutrition or death. Moreover, newer trendy toys containing glitter or microbeads can cause further harm by emitting millions of additional microplastic particles.
Borrow & Reuse
There is no need to give up playing with toys at the beach. We can still have fun without producing negative environmental impacts. Also, it doesn’t require shelling out money for more sustainable alternatives. (Although if you’re interested, this is a good place to start.)
Instead, to combat the litter and minimise environmental harm from plastic seaside toys, beach toy libraries are popping up along coastal communities all over the UK. They include seafronts in Sidmouth, Weymouth, Irvine and across Essex. These libraries, often taking the form of a shed, chest or other similar container, function similarly to traditional libraries, with the motto “Borrow, Play, Return.” Instead of housing books however, they act as hubs for borrowing, returning and donating beach toys.
Playing at the Seaside
When visiting families finish using their toys, they have a safe place to put them where they can be reused by other children. Likewise, beachgoers can choose to borrow from the libraries instead of having to purchase new plastic toys. This provides economic as well as ecological benefits in the face of the ongoing cost of living and climate crises. As an added bonus, instead of collecting dust in the cupboard or being sent to a landfill, families can donate the beach toys they no longer need for others to enjoy! Moreover, instead of leaving the unusable plastic bits from broken toys along the shore, the toy libraries also function as a place to drop off broken toys to be collected and properly recycled or repurposed.
Circular Economy
By reducing waste and encouraging re-use and sharing, toy libraries utilise circular economy principles to decrease plastic beach toy pollution, environmental harm and single-use plastic/throwaway culture. If you’d like to help keep plastic out of our oceans by starting a beach toy library in your community, reach out to your local council today.
