• Home
  • Latest News
    • ReLeaf Lake Mac >
      • MAC tree trail
      • Tiny Forest
      • National Tree Day
    • Repair It Lake Mac
    • Plastic free Lake Mac >
      • Plastic Free Cafes
      • Plastic free Toronto
      • Ban the bag >
        • Bag Swap Stations
        • Champions
      • Green gifts
    • Waste to Art >
      • 2021 Exhibition Guide
    • Our Community Gardens
    • Renewal 2022
    • Sharing and training opportunities >
      • Celebrate 2022
      • Previous events >
        • Gathering Feb 2022
        • Circular economy gathering
        • Coal Ash update
        • Gathering Feb 2021
        • Picnic and celebration
        • Virtual Catch Up
        • Empowerment workshop
        • Celebrate 2019
        • T-shirt Order
        • Cake and conversation June 2019
        • Celebrate 2018
        • Celebrate 2017
        • Celebrate 2016
        • Health and safety training
        • Recruiting young people
        • Recruiting volunteers
        • Tips and lessons
        • Grants and fundraising
        • Annual Show and Tell
        • Success session - May 2014
        • Online collaboration
    • Newsletter
    • Decade of Sustainable Neighbourhoods
    • Superstars
    • School sustainability
    • Success Stories >
      • Citywide Clean Up
      • Lake Mac Awards 2020
    • Responsible Cat Care
    • Dog brochure
    • Coastal Wetlands Park
  • Local groups
    • Belmont Area
    • Cardiff Area >
      • Pollinator Project
      • Boomerang Bags Sewing Group
      • Past projects >
        • Bird Count BBQ
        • Waste-free Christmas
        • Instagram competition
        • Car Boot Sales
        • Beeswax wrap making
        • National Tree Day
        • Twilight picnic in the park
        • Halloween @ Cardiff
        • Cardiff Cycleway Forum
        • Green coffee grounds
        • Boomerang Bags
        • Eco Angel Cardiff South
        • Wreath making
        • Compost bin making
        • Australia Day Award
        • Shortland Volunteer Award
        • Cardiff Landcare
        • CLEANas Presentation
        • Plant Swap
    • Dudley >
      • Dudley Community Garden
      • Dudley Mural
    • Five Bays >
      • Neighbourhood gathering
      • Pamper care project
      • Awaba State Conservation Area
    • Greater Charlestown >
      • Motherload screening
    • Morisset & Peninsula >
      • Eco articles
    • Pelican Area
    • Rathmines Area >
      • Beeswax wrap workshops
      • Acheivements
      • Kilaben Bay - Rathmines Pathway
      • Rathmines Master Plan
      • Wicking garden beds
      • Bag It Film
      • Rathmines Park Litter Project
      • Camping in park
      • Asbestos removal
      • Celebration 2017
    • Redhead >
      • Redhead Latest News
      • Redhead Village Newsletter
      • Redhead committee
      • Redhead community
      • Redhead Landcare
      • Redhead past events
    • Toronto Area >
      • Projects >
        • Picnic in the park
        • Brighton Ave Footpath
        • Fire Retardant Garden
        • Community Garden
        • Tossers can be binners
      • Vision
    • Valentine >
      • Walking in Valentine
    • Warners Bay Area >
      • Indigenous connection
      • Winter Nature Play Adventure
      • Autumn Nature Play Adventure
    • West Wallsend District >
      • Sugar Valley
      • New projects
      • Holmesville garden
      • Landcare
      • Achievements >
        • Old Waste, New Art 2015
      • Old Waste New Art
      • News
      • Gallery
  • The Alliance
    • Strategic plan
    • Annual Report
    • Volunteer >
      • Waste to Art Coordinator
      • Photographers and videographers
      • Social media
      • Minutes secretary
      • Promotions team
      • Young Leaders
      • Marketing specialist
      • Living Smart Festival 2019
    • Become a member >
      • Annual renewal
    • Strengthening Sustainable Neighbourhoods
    • Alliance Board >
      • Alliance Board Meetings
      • Alliance Meeting Minutes Archive
    • Alliance AGM
  • Resources
    • Volunteer induction
    • Year Planner
    • Governance
    • Planning and implementing
    • Community Gardens
    • Promoting your activities
    • Survey Results
    • SNAPs
  • Supporters
    • Business Supporters
  • About
    • Contact
    • Privacy
  Sustainable Neighbourhoods Lake Macquarie
Think green gifts
Originally published in the Morisset and Peninsula Bulletin, November 2018.
Article and images by Lindi Bowen-Needs.

Give more thought to your purchases because a gift that has less impact on the planet gives the double gift of a better future planet for our children.
Instead of giving a junk toy to fill the garbage tip, give a toy that is durable and recyclable or compostable. Give one that is made from recycled materials, saving those materials from going to landfill. Give a gift that is made from sustainably harvested plant material instead of oil. Or give a gift made in a more sustainable manufacturing process with fewer greenhouse gas emissions and fewer pollutants released.
Are the gifts more expensive? Not necessarily. For example, a brand name or quality-built unrecyclable plastic product can be more expensive that a comparably sized eco-product. They may have manufacturing processes with no toxic materials, powered by solar and wind, and contain recycled content that could be less expensive, and there are not the huge advertising budgets built into the purchase of a small business manufactured toy compared to a large international brand name.
What can I buy?
I asked local toy stores, perused the toy shelves in our local department store and searched online to see what had environmental merits. Although not 100%, the following had some environmental merits over the other toys.
Picture
Picture
Caseys Toys (Charlestown, Erina and East Maitland) was the only toy store to reply. They advised that they have “Green Toys” brand Tugboat and Submarine. “Green Toys” uses 100% recycled sterilised food-grade plastic from milk bottles and yoghurt containers. Being foodgrade, the plastic is free of many of the plastic additives of concern such as BPA. The packaging is recycled cardboard and there are none of those annoying plastic ties and packaging that you struggle with when the child wants the gift unboxed. The milk bottle and yoghurt plastic ought to be able to be recycled after use, but this depends if a recycler knows it is recyclable. Perhaps the manufacturer will take it back for recycling again.
The main downside is that the product is manufactured in USA and therefore has a high transport impact. However “Green Toys” have put a lot of thought into reducing the environmental impact of the manufacturing and in designing a quality safe product.

In our local Morisset department store, there are few making any mention of any environmental credibility. One product notes that its cardboard packaging is recyclable. I also found some products made with timber and cardboard, notably cardboard puzzles in unlacquered timber or cardboard boxes. You could buy a product with an “environmental theme”… a recycling truck. There is no mention of the type of plastic or whether it is recyclable, but the cardboard box packaging is recyclable.
Online there are dozens of Australian sellers of more sustainable toys. Mostly these are toys made of timber and a few are proudly cardboard. There are also crayons and plasticine products made of alternative materials with perhaps less environmental impact. Here are some of the Australian online toy sellers promoting more sustainable toys: Rainbow Fun, Little Earth Nest, Entropy, Knock on Wood Toys, Honey Bee Toys, Biome, Lime Tree Kids, Bubbalove, Ecolateral Shop, Green Pennies, Kiozwi, Sustain-a-baby, Crayons, Ecotoys, Hello Charlie, Eco Child, Itty Bitty Greenie, Shop of Toys.

What about Lego? Lego has finally started to make some environmental improvements. They have always been a durable, reusable toy with a wide range of creative play, that has been able to be passed from one generation and family to the next. However, they have been made from a tough oil-based plastic without recyclability. Lego has achieved two notable sustainable outcomes recently. They have converted their manufacturing to 100% reusable energy sources by building wind and solar farms. Secondly, this year they have started releasing - at first in Europe and then gradually around the world – Lego made from plant-sourced plastic rather than oil-based plastic. Their first product containing this plastic are their green trees and shrub pieces.

Don’t forget there are also options to purchase second hand toys online, at our local auction house or at one of the charity shops. The perfect toy may be waiting there for you.

And lastly don’t forget you can make toys. Play dough can be made at home using flour, food colouring and a recipe from online. Paper and cardboard packaging can be made into toys. Timber can be carved or cut and joined together. Make a billy cart or a cubby house. Give a home-made science kit to try safe experiments like growing salt or sugar crystals with food colouring in them, or grow seedlings in stuffed stockings. Sew or knit your own stuffed toy and stuff it with the material and wool offcuts.

What can I get adults?
Sometimes it can be a challenge to give a gift someone does not already have. Consider do they have sustainable versions of things? Get them started on buying sustainable products by introducing them to the wonderful products now available. For example, locally at Bonnells Bay and Morisset chemists, supermarkets and other local shops you can buy:
  • Reusable shopping bags made with sustainably produced cotton and packaged in recyclable cardboard;
  • Reusable mesh produce bags made from recycled plastic drink bottles to buy your fruit and vegetables in instead of those once-used plastic vegetable bags;
  • A reusable takeaway coffee cup, some made with recycled plastics, some made with plant-based plastics instead of oil-based plastics, and some made from recyclable metal;
  • A cup to rinse after brushing your teeth, made from the same range of materials as the coffee cups above;
  • Compostable bamboo toothbrushes or plant-based plastic toothbrushes;
  • Compostable bamboo cutting boards and timber cheese boards;
  • Coconut fibre bottle cleaning, scrubbing or personal-care brushes with recyclable metal or compostable timber handles;
  • Subscription to a permaculture or sustainability magazine; or
  • Books on sustainable living, organic gardening, cooking with fresh food ingredients or tips to using left overs.
Don’t buy silly gifts this silly season. Think green gifts. I wish you happy shopping for a happy-planet future and the best of the upcoming season.
Picture
Sustainable Neighbourhoods Lake Macquarie
Our vision - Neighbourhoods that are empowered to live sustainably.
Our mission - Our work is to foster sustainable neighbourhoods and a healthy environment in Lake Macquarie
Our values - We are guided by our values of participation, inclusion, collaboration, empowerment and shared responsibility.
Picture
The Lake Macquarie Sustainable Neighbourhood Alliance is registered as a not for profit incorporated association under NSW Fair Trading. Sustainable Neighbourhood activities are managed and governed by volunteers and financed through grants, collaboration and community fundraising.

We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land and waters on which we live, work and play, the Awabakal People, and acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who now reside in this area. We pay our respect to Elders past and present, and future cultural knowledge holders.
Picture
Sustainable Neighbourhoods is an initiative of Lake Macquarie City Council.
www.lakemac.com.au
Picture
We are proud to be a Very Neighbourly Organisation and supporter of Neighbour Day.
www.neighbourday.org