How many toys did you buy your children last year?  How many of those toys were played with for more than two hours?  How many of them will go into the garage, virtually unused, and stay there until you do that huge garage cleaning project you’ve been talking about for nine months?  I think it is precisely my lack of a garage or any closet space in the two bedroom duplex I share with my boyfriend and our two daughters that inspired me to think about the way we Americans consume toys.  And we do buy a lot of toys:  more than the next five largest toy consuming countries put together.  But, I found myself asking, do we have to pay top dollar for brand new toys that our kids may or may not even play with for five minutes?  NO! 

There are tons of second hand toys out there, some gently used and some never used, for sale at children’s consignment stores, Goodwill, garage sales and the ultimate (in my opinion) used ANYTHING resource, Craigslist.  There are so many good things about doing business with these guys.  Most of the children’s resale shops are locally owned.  By trading with establishments like the Pumpkin Patch on Anderson, Rock-a-Bye Kids on I35 and Braker, and Anna’s Toy Depot on S. Lamar, your dollar stays here in town.  And their money stays here, too, as they buy everything they sell from local parents who want to pass down their children’s gently used toys, clothing, books, etc. 

And of course if you really want to save money, skip the middle man and go straight to the source.  Craigslist allows you to connect directly with other parents and buy anything you can imagine that your child might want or need.  You get a great deal, and you put cash directly into the hands of another parent—who will probably go buy more toys with it, and then sell those too to another thrifty parent. 

Another great resource for toys and books for kids in Austin is Family Connections on 53^rd and Airport.  Family Connections is, among many other things, a library where anyone can check out toys and books for two weeks.  Your child can have three new toys and five new books every week if you go there.  Oh, and it’s completely free, and it’s a great hangout for mommies and kiddos on a rainy day. 

So there is, of course, an economic benefit, but also a huge environmental benefit.  I shudder to think of how many plastic toys are sitting in landfills:  Bright, shiny, primary colored pieces of plastic, never to change or biodegrade, probably leaching toxic heavy metals from their batteries and electronic insides.  And what about the energy and resources required in manufacturing them?  In short if just a third of us bought a third of our toys secondhand, or better yet, just rented them, imagine how much waste could be avoided.  And it feels good to know you are doing your little part for the environment, all while teaching your children the value of reusing and reducing waste.