The retailer announced today that it has teamed up with toymaker Hasbro and environmental non-profit Wastebuster to launch the toy recycling scheme at selected Tesco stores. The trial is now set to run from Monday until early December.
Tesco stressed that customers are first and foremost encouraged to re-home old but still functioning toys through charities or by giving them to families and friends. But broken hard plastic toys can now be brought into participating stores to be collected, cleaned, and turned into plastic pellets.
Those pellets can then be used by manufacturers to create new items such as coat hangers, chairs, and coffee machines. Should the scheme prove successful, Tesco said it would be rolled out to further stores in future.
“We are always looking for new ways to remove, reduce, reuse and recycle plastic in our business, so we’re delighted to be able to support the Recycle to Read campaign as a way to help our customers do more of this at home,” said Ally Rose, Tesco’s category director for toys.
“As well as trialling a new way we can work together on hard-to-recycle plastics, it also helps to give children greater access to reading.”
Meanwhile, customers can register re-homed or recycled plastic toys via the Wastebuster website in order to earn ‘Planet Care Points’ for nurseries and schools attended by children aged from two to 11 years old in the Sussex area.
Eligible schools are then able to put these points towards book vouchers by registering to the Recycle to Read scheme, which aims to reward the 50 highest point scoring schools using an overall prize fund of £5,000 that can be spent on a range of discounted books from Harper Collins, Wastebuster said.
The schools are also eligible to take part in a weekly prize draw to win book bundles from other children’s book publishers such as Farshore and Ladybird, it added.
The Recycled to Read campaign has been launched in association with green membership organisation Products for Change, and is backed by a raft of major children’s publishers and distributors, including Immediate Media Company, Story House Egmont, Redan, Kennedy, Signature, DC Thompson, Frontline, and Seymour.
Helena Mansell-Stopher, founder of Products of Change, said the campaign aimed to improve recycling rates for notoriously hard-to-recycle plastic toys, while also providing an incentive to Tesco customers that can support nurseries and primary schools.
“The Recycle to Read platform is the result of the tireless work of an industry coming together with cross-sector stakeholders around the need to find more sustainable solution for unwanted or broken toys,” she explained.
“After so many years in the making, it’s amazing to see the campaign come to life through this Hasbro and Tesco partnership. This is a hugely exciting moment that I believe represents a turning point for circularity in toys, and a wonderful example of what can be achieved when industry demonstrates sector leadership and comes together, in the pursuit of sustainability.”
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