A plastic frisbee for the landfill
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Little Miss Green with a plastic frisbee for landfill
We’ve decided as a family that this won’t be going in our own bin; we’ll drop it off into the ‘non recyclable’ when we next go to the recycling centre, but I wanted to share the story with you.
The other day, Little Miss Green was playing in the field. There are a couple of horses in there who she has made friends with.
She came in with flushed cheeks and wild hair clutching something orange. I caught sight of her out of the corner of my eye from the kitchen.
“What is that?” Mr Green asked looking at the mound of plastic in her hands.
Little Miss green went on to explain that she had found a broken plastic frisbee in the field. She had picked up all the pieces and bought it home because she was worried the horses would try to eat it and be harmed.
Bless her.
She was most indignant that someone had been so thoughtless to leave it in the field like that (I think she had conveniently forgotten the amount of broken plastic toys littering our garden, but never mind; at least they are not ‘in the wild’ I guess).
So we called a family conference and decided that we shouldn’t be accountable for the plastic frisbee in our bin or add it to our personal weigh in, but that we would dispose of it properly so no other animals would be endangered.
I have to say, this is something that concerns me about 21st century life – the massive volume of ‘pile ’em high, sell ’em cheap’ toys that our children are growing up with. They last a few days at best and then become ‘rubbish’. Our children are bought up to look for the next fix and move on to the next thing, like good little consumers. I wonder how we can ever solve the landfill issue until we pull back from so much mindless consumerism. We try and stay away from it as much as we can, but we can’t live in a vacuum or turn our child into the village freak.
Ok, rant over before I really get going! Needless to say I’m proud of my girl …
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Great point! I think about how fast kids go through toys now-a-days! I want to definitely prevent that by buying reused toys, or green toys, and giving them away when they are finished.
I positively hate it when Master P comes home clutching the latest ‘gift’ from the Golden Arches! He’s lucky if I give into the place once a year, that and Colonel Sanders, but Mr P is a bit more of a soft touch.
The latest is a plastic chipmunk which has spent 4 days sat on the side and has now been snuck into the charity shop bag!
We have tried to give experiences instead of all these ‘things’ some of which break so quickly and many of which give no lasting pleasure.
It has been too easy to give ‘things’ with all the credit available – giving something that involves time and thought is much harder but can be much more worthwhile for all involved. Making more of an effort to do things with grandparents and making things is great fun.
I love some of the ideas on the We Are What We Do website eg teach your granny to text, read a book with a child and spend time with someone of a different generation…
@Ashley: Hi Ashley, We give stuff away as much as we can. When Little Miss green was a babe we only bought (and accepted from other people) wooden toys. Virtually all of these have been kept and stored for future generations because they last so well. There is nothing plastic in the attic – most of these get broken, and the decent stuff we take to a charity shop. I hate plastic toys with a passion, but it’s us against the rest of the world ….
@Poppy: Oh no! LMG’s latest interest is kinder surprise eggs – she is fascinated by the entire concept. I’ve told her they are full of crap that falls apart in a few seconds and is worse than Christmas cracker offerings but of course she wants to experience it for herself *sigh*
Well done LMG.
I had several conversations before Christmas with different people about children’s stockings. Virtually everyone I know was extolling the 99p shop because it made it so easy to get a nice chunky stocking. One mum actually said to me “it doesn’t matter that it is tat and will all end up in the bin, it’s the feel of the stocking that matters”.
Now I know this is a cultural thing. I’m not suddenly dissing all my mum friends and secretly loathing them. But it does make me sad that this kind of feeling has come to pervade. In their eyes my kids stockings were probably stupid and boring but my 3.5 year old dd LOVED her new pants, socks and hairbands and I got some good boy things for ds too.
@Mrs Green:
I do like Kinder Eggs 🙂 The toys are usually quite amazing, but I do wish they’s ditch the plastic egg or that there was a use for them.
@LJayne: Oh Gawd; I can’t stand that comment; I know what you mean; it’s very hard that these sorts of things are now the ‘norm’
@Poppy: I’m sure LMG will come up with something. She asked me to MAKE her a kinder egg because she is totally obsessed by the idea, so I hid a keyring in her jacket potato the other day – she was most impressed LOL!
I’m with you. Today my kids have broken their large pull-along dog (courtesy of shopaholicmother-in-law) and I don’t think it is safely fixable (has sharp metal bits sticking out), so it’ll get landfilled :(.
@Charity: 🙁 sorry to hear about the dog. I remember us having them as kids – made of wood and a tail made of a spring LOL! I don’t think I had one myself, but I used to covet my friends.