Introducing our Eco-Friendly Range!
We have slowly been releasing our eco range throughout the year, you may have already seen our new Eco Elephants and new floral collection. However, you might not have seen it recently but we have introduced our new eco dinosaurs to the clan! These come in various colours: Blue, Brown, Grey and Green, these little guys make the perfect buddy for your little man! Now, we do sell a very special eco-friendly baby toy, he doesn’t get as much love as our beloved floral bunnies but he is extremely cute nevertheless. He is even musical! Who doesn’t love musical toys? (Parents, probably.)
Our Grey bunnies with pink and white ears are some of our most famous products, however, they are not very eco-friendly. So, we have decided to take the plunge and change them to be more sustainable! They look and feel the same as before, but they are just a little bit heavier now. The important thing is that they still look as cute as before.
Instead of the usually hard, plastic eyes, you see on most soft toys, our eco range has embroidered eyes that saves on unnecessary plastic which gives it a more unique and playful look. Now let’s get to the nitty-gritty. All of our eco range were once plastic bottles, so it will obviously take a certain amount of them to make our lovely, cuddly toys and I’m here to tell you exactly how many each toy takes!
It takes 14 500ml water bottles to make enough fibres for our 9 Inch Eco Elephants and 16 water bottles for our 11 Inch Eco Elephants. For our dinosaurs, each one of them takes 21 bottles! That’s 21 fewer bottles to end up in our oceans and on our beaches! Our musical Koala Toy can take up to 14 plastic bottles to create enough fibres for our musical friend. Finally, we have our baby rattle which can come as a set with the Koala. This little rattle does have a wood holder on it, and this has been made up of reclaimed wood. It’s all very fascinating.
They take 59% less energy making recycled polyester and each toy from our eco range is made from 100% recycled plastic fabrics, recycled glass beans and a recycled sewed in label.
Now I bet you're wondering how on earth plastic is turned into polyester, well I'm here to simplify it for you!
- So the fabric of the polyester is not exactly eco-friendly. The production process of this particular fabric uses fossil fuels, big quantities of water and chemicals. Now, none of these are good for any human, never mind mother earth.
- On top of the factors this already has on the environment, the non-degradable fabric is not a very nice fabric to touch, wear or even look at! It also has an artificial feel and shine which is not aesthetically pleasing. Therefore, the recycled polyester we use on our toys also looks great on one's self.
The steps below are involved in the production process:
- The collected PET bottles are sterilized, dried and crushed into small chips.
- The chips are heated and passed through a spinneret to form strings of yarn.
- This yard is wound up in spools.
- The fibre is then passed through a crimping machine to create a fluffy texture.
- This yarn is then baled, dyed and knitted into polyester fabric.
See, simple!
Thankfully over the years more and more businesses and services have been joining the force of becoming more eco-friendly. If we hadn't chosen to be more conscious about what goes into making our toys, we would never have had the chance to introduce all of these lovely toys!