We have a fun problem.

I don't mean the problem is fun.

I mean, we have turned childhood into a $90 billion industry, which is hilarious because children are more entertained by a pile of rocks.

I'm Brooke Butler, and in this episode of What Do I Do With This, hand me down or throw me out.

We're unstuffing the problem with kids' stuff.

Toys, gear, gadgets, clothes, the must-have items that will make your baby smarter, sleep better, and make your life easier.

All that made up of 90% plastic and 80% ending up in the trash.

And it's not just the clutter that's concerning.

Some toys emit thousands of chemicals over time, which is a problem considering how kids interact with toys.

I'm talking mouthing, chewing, like fully committing.

So somewhere between the toy aisle and the trash can, there's a bigger question.

How did we end up with so much colorful, poisonous, entertaining death traps?

What are we supposed to do with it all?

And why is this yet another thing parents are responsible for figuring out?

But before we go any further, this is a guilt and judgment free episode, not for buying too much or the wrong thing or even throwing things away.

We only exist in the system built for us.

and the solutions lie not in being perfect, but but awareness and choices.

So let's start with toys.

♪♪ Any caregiver of young kids have all probably reached the same boiling point.

How did we end up with so many toys?

- I think we're in a big day and age where parents don't want to hoard all the things and store all the things.

I'm not using it, it's gone.

It sat in my basement for too long.

It's in the trash.

It's being donated.

It's in the trash.

And, you know, why are we buying these for them to only use it for such a short amount of time?

- Seeing those were the same thoughts as so many other parents, mom friends, Emily Coke and Tiffany Boothe, created Swap the Playroom.

Think of it like a library for toys.

Although, yes, it does cost a small fee to rent, but the benefits will save you not only money, but sanity.

Good toys, quality toys are expensive to buy outright.

You go to Target, you buy a new toy and you're like, you're going to be so excited about this.

Fifteen minutes later, gone.

Done.

Gone.

Yep.

And that's what a lot of these are.

They're a lot of single-use, single-goal toys, especially like this key and lock set.

They only can do it a few times and then they're like, "Can I have a new toy now?"

- Yes, out here, like these cardboard bricks, so they're really great to build with.

- So fun.

- And you can do a lot of different things with these, but as you see, they take up an entire tub.

A lot of people don't have this extra storage to be able to store this massive rescue house.

We live in an apartment.

I don't have any place to keep these toys, but my kid wants it.

So they will just get them a week at a time and kind of swap them out that way.

- Do you ever wish like, "Oh, it'd be nice to have my garage back."

- Every day.

(laughing) Honestly, no, like we've done a really good job.

- Each year, nearly 900 million new toys are manufactured.

That's roughly three point six billion pounds.

And around a third of those will end up in the landfill.

Why?

Four main reasons.

Quality of the product.

If it's cheaply made, it's quick to break.

Which also leads to donation obstacles.

When parts are missing, broken, or growing a certain mystery bacteria, nobody else wants to play with that.

Toys generally have a short lifespan, sometimes due to quality and durability, but also because kids outgrow things very quickly.

And one of the biggest factors to toy waste is overconsumption.

The average family in the U.S.

has 87 toys, which, yeah, sounds like a dream.

But research shows that too many toys actually make it harder for kids to play and focus.

Less is more.

Less is more.

- I keep very low amount of toys on my shelves at times the more toys you have the more overwhelmed they get and then they feel like they need you to play with them their creativity is stopped so I definitely think that whole less is more thing they honestly get more engaged with it.

And how you have them set up is so important too.

Yes.

You have them set up ready to play.

Ready to play.

Not in a storage container.

Yes.

Ready to play.

Personally, I rotate my own playroom with my two-year-old.

We have a cabinet in the basement where toys go to hide for a little bit, bring them out because as soon as you bring them back out of hiding, it's like a brand new toy all over again whether or not they've played with it a hundred times before.

- We do a lot of community play dates just bring moms together.

I say moms, but parents too.

But typically moms really need that community aspect more, especially in that season of having toddlers or preschoolers.

It's a hard season, so having a community is really important.

What Swap the Playroom is doing, keeping things in rotation instead of piling up, is a part of circular economy that is vital to sustainability because the alternative, recycling, for things like plastic toys is incredibly complicated.

Most plastic toys are made from a mix of materials and chemicals that are hard to separate.

Things like plasticizers, flame retardants, bisphenols, metals like lead or cadmium, plus colorants and fragrances.

Now, before anyone panics, this isn't about throwing everything out and starting over.

There are ways to reduce the risk with what you already have.

Things like choosing wood, cloth or paper toys when you can, limiting how much toys get aggressively chewed on, and just basic stuff like cleaning, airing things out and washing hands.

Because at the end of the day, kids are gonna play.

And I know what you're thinking.

If this stuff is so dangerous for kids, why is it being made and sold in the first place?

Great question.

And there are efforts for lawmakers and policymakers to stop those kinds of things.

But it's a long, slow, tedious process.

And in the meantime, we're kind of left to our own devices.

But we don't have to do it alone.

Safety Stop is a free injury prevention service that we offer to the community.

Anybody who's watching a child, who's transporting a child, having them ride on their bikes at their house, whatever it may be, we're happy to educate you.

And it's always a free service.

We educate on four main topics.

We do car seat safety, home safety, safe sleep and bike helmet safety.

We want to prevent the injury before it even happens.

And we do that by educating on what kind of car seat should a child be in?

How does that look?

Is it installed properly?

Are they harnessed or belted properly?

Bike helmets, making sure they're fitting correctly.

So that way they're not on the back of their heads with their full forehead exposed, but they can actually protect them if they fall off their bike.

Safe sleep is a really big one for us.

We want to make sure that those infants 12 months or less are sleeping alone on their back in a crib, bassinet, pack and play, in an area with no smoking.

And then for home safety, we want to make sure those little ones, when they start to crawl, they're not crawling around and falling down the stairs.

They're not putting their little fingers in outlets.

So talking to parents and caregivers about how to keep that home as safe as possible for your little ones as they're growing and exploring.

I mean, as a parent myself, just hearing those things are like, "No, no, no, scary.

"Don't even think about it."

But even more important to talk about it so you're not faced with a fear-based situation in the home.

- Yeah, we want you to feel prepared and confident on how to properly and appropriately protect your child in different scenarios.

- Okay, so here we have a kid in a car seat.

(laughing) Step one, put the child in the car seat.

- Yeah, so when we have a rear-facing child in a car seat, the first thing we wanna do is make sure their bottom is all the way back.

We don't want them slouching forward in the seat.

And then we're gonna put their harness straps on.

So you have two harness straps, one goes over each shoulder, and then you have their bottom buckle between their legs.

So the chest clip's clipped, the bottom buckle's clipped.

And now you're gonna start tightening that harness up.

The harness needs to be snug.

As long as you can fit a finger under their collarbone, not too tight.

They're okay as long as you can fit a finger, but I never want to be able to pinch the slack.

Now to make it more realistic, the kid would be like flipping, tightening, pushing.

- Kicking, moving.

- And I'm glad you brought that up because this looks very uncomfortable and it looks awkward to have their legs like this, but this is okay as long as they're still in the height and weight requirement of your seat.

So when you're done using the car seat, especially if it's old, expired, damaged, we don't want a child unknowingly being in this seat.

So what we want you to do is cut the harness straps, right?

Expired on the fabric and big sharpie and put it in a black trash bag out for the trash so nobody can accidentally see the seat and use it for their kiddo, not knowing that it's not a safe seat.

It's one of those things where it's like environmental health or human health, you know?

I mean, it's a lot.

Car seats are a lot of plastic.

They are.

And so luckily there are a couple of recycle programs.

twice a year Target does a recycle program where you can bring it, trade it in.

They'll give you like a coupon for new baby gear to buy as well.

And they recycle that big hunk of plastic, which is great.

Yeah.

So I think we can all agree about the importance of safety when it comes to kids.

But there are a lot of products out there that claim they're great for kids, but in fact, do the opposite.

Why?

I know this is going to come as a shock, but it's about money.

The baby and kids market is designed to keep things moving.

Parents are constantly encouraged to buy not just toys, but everything from lotions, soaps, bottles and wipes.

And the thing is, those items aren't much different from each other or from adult items, just packaged cuter, marketed as safer and often with a higher price tag.

Again, this isn't about guilt.

It's about awareness that knowledge is power and our choices do make a difference.

So systems are really great at getting things into our homes but not great at taking into account those who don't have the same resources or access.

And once again, that's where community steps up.

- You know, with group of friends, people are always handing stuff down.

Well, we can be that best friend that everybody needs and we will get it out to people you don't even know when you're impacting them.

- Since 2011, Helping Hand-Me-Downs has supported over 40,000 families around the St.

Louis region.

Their services start by simply providing the basic necessities, essential items that can turn crisis into stability.

But the real mission goes beyond the physical items.

Through their many trusted partnerships, families are then connected with resources to go from surviving to thriving.

- All we are is just a conduit.

We are taking from the families who have, and they have plenty, and we're trying to get them to the families who don't have anything.

- Founded by Stephanie Soljack, a foster mom who saw the need for this kind of service, this grassroots effort is powered by volunteers packed into a small warehouse in Ellisville with plans to expand their efforts because of the need, but also because of the support.

There's something about the St.

Louis community that they show up when they know how.

- Yes, it's truly overwhelming how amazing people are because we needed, I think we needed 10 car seats at the beginning of this week to fill orders.

And people, I mean, not only are they dropping off car seats, but they're Venmoing us money, they're cash-apping us money, saying, "Go buy a car seat, go buy a car," you know.

They don't want, if they know that there's a need and they and they know they can help, they will help.

- This is our donation drop sheds.

They're open 24/7.

So this is usually what they look like.

Sometimes they're even up to here.

- Oh, wow.

- Packed full of stuff.

This is from last night into today.

So this will all be unloaded.

- This was just from one day.

- Yeah.

- Like really, we left at 12 yesterday and they were empty.

Each kid, when they open up the bag, they get so excited to see the books and the stuffed animal and the toys.

And those are such tangible items that we all have access of.

- The biggest need that I saw were people leaving the hospital without the appropriate equipment.

So car seats and cribs were the biggest like safety need.

We take a lot of things that people don't like the unexpired car seats.

The cribs are a big one.

Pack N Plays, swings, bouncers, anything that if you have children or you've watched children that you need to help raise them day in and day out safely.

We also our biggest thing that we give out is clothes, 10 outfits and some PJs.

We go through everything and make sure it looks good.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah.

- We have to know when we're giving something that it can be safely used, pretty self-explanatory.

So strollers, they have to have the five-point harness.

Same thing with the infant car seats.

- How do you think volunteering here has changed your buying habits as a mom or just like as a consumer in general?

Um, it really hit me one day.

We're giving these families like each kid gets 10 outfits, some PJs, stuffed animal toys and books and shoes.

And it's like crazy to think about a lot of those families like that's all that kiddo has.

So it just kind of checked me to teach me and my family that we don't need access and people donating their stuff.

They don't want it to go in a landfill.

They know it still has more life.

They just don't know where to go with it.

Thanks for watching this episode of What Do I Do With This?

Hey, I have a question.

What do you give out as party favors so they don't break the second you get home or they don't pile up in a box and never be played with again?

You can find more information at NinePBS.org/WhatDoIDoWithThis.

♪♪