Green Life

Green toys are some of my favorite toys to talk about.  I love the innovation by many of the toy manufacturers out there, and I love that we are trying hard to do something as an industry to create fun products that are a little better for kids, the environment, and even parents.  In putting together my green toy list this year, I have included some Amazon.com Frustration Free Packaging toys.  Not only are the toys great, the packing is a breakthrough for any parent who has ever cut a hand, tossed a package, or said some words not meant for children's ears- while opening a toy package.  (You can see all our Frustration Free Packaged items here).

And now onto the list, I hope it makes your holidays a little greener this year!

1. Sprig Toys Eco-Recycling Truck in Amazon.com Frustration Free Packaging.  - I wrote about this little wonder before, but I just adore this truck.  It is sturdy, it has a little recycling container that dumps into the back of the truck, there are no batteries to mess with because it is totally kid-powered, and the smell of Sprig Wood is just fantastic (because it is made out of recycled wood, combined with recycled plastic- it feels like plastic but smells like a forest!).  Also, because it is in AFFP, there are no ties, no extra cardboard, or wrap.  You simply open the box, pull out the truck, and play!

2. Idbid Waverly Eco-Friendly Starter Kit in Blue in Amazon.com Frustration Free Packing - Idbids are a darly way to teach your child about caring for the environment.  Made of organic cotton, these little plush friends come with a storybook, a field guide, and a cinch sack to carry everything in.  They also have an online component for more learning.  Again, because they are in FFP, they are open-and-go toys!

3. Plan Toys City Series Parking Garage - There is something about a parking garage that kids love.  My son still loves his that he has had since he was under a year old.  Plan Toys use rubber wood from trees that previously would have been burned after they were no longer producing rubber.  Plan takes these trees and makes fantastic toys that are simple and pleasing to even the adult eye.  

4. Planet Pixies, Kayla Doll - My daughter is just about as opposite as me as she could be.  While I was a tom boy who wanted to play with horses and He-Man figures, she is a princess-loving pink freak (and I mean that in the nicest way possible- she is an amazing kid).  I embrace this difference and have learned to love pretty, sparkly things (even Barbie!).  Something I know she loves are fairies of all kind so Planet Pixies are right up her alley.  These dolls are made out of organic cotton and teach kids about the environment with an earth-friendly message.

5. Eco Snoopers - Create Your Own Secret Diary Set - Need something for an older, maybe tween-age, girl?  The Eco Snoopers craft kits are made with recycled paper and are fun kits for some creative fun.  They come in a diary set, a scrapbooking set, and card making set.

6. Eitech Deluxe Solar Powered Metal Building Kit - Older kids will love this kit that helps them learn about alternative solar power.  This huge kit includes plans to build up to five models.  We have tested this kits before and found them to be very sturdy, and chanllenging to kids who love to build.  

7. Wonderworld Eco-Friendly Rainbow Sound Blocks - If you have a baby or young child on your list this holiday season, blocks are always a welcome gift.  Not only are these blocks eco-friendly and non-toxic, they are also fun for baby to discover the noises that they make.  Simple toys are usually the best and most used toys in the toy box.

8.ImagiPLAY Veggie Cutting Set - Kids love to pretend to cook.  These veggies are fun, eco-friendly, and also can encourage kids to eat healthy foods.  Chopping veggies is fun and safe with this preschool set.

9. ImagiPLAY Christmas Tree - I adore this natural wood puzzle.  It would be a great family tradition to bring it out every year and have everyone in the family help put it together.   

10. Green Sprouts Organic Cotton Splash Toy Set - Totally safe and non-toxic for baby, these organic bath toys will make quite a splash this holiday season. 

11.Under The Nile Jack Doll with Extra Clothes - Kids love to dress and undress dolls.  This cute organic cotton doll comes with an extra set of clothes.  it is hard to find boy dolls (I know from looking for one for my daughter when we knew she would have a new brother arriving soon) and this one is adorable, green, and soft.

12. Plan Toys Chalet Doll House with Furniture - I want to live in this house.  Seriously, I love modern design and this is just about the most perfect looking house out there.  Made from recycled rubberwood trees, this fantastic looking house comes with furniture and it ready for a family of dolls to move right in.

13. Classic ABC Blocks with Wagon by Uncle Goose - These blocks come from wood from a sustainable forest in Michigan.  They are very high quality and are hand painted with non-toxic paints.  They are beautiful, classic toys that will be passed down to many happy children.

14. Silk Dragonfly Wings by Sarah's Silks - Silk is a renewable resource, and makes a beautiful play material for children.  Sarah's Silks makes great dress up costumes that are 100% silk and itch-free.

15. Eco Kids Eco-Dough - Made from fruit and vegetable bases, this molding clay has no chemicals or artificial dyes.  Perfect for little hands (and curious little mouths!).

16. Wonderworld Eco-Friendly Wonder Work Bench - Your little builder can pretend the day away with the great little workbench just his or her size.  Made from rubberwood and painted with non-toxic paints, it is adorable and really works!

17.  Plan Toys The Green Dollhouse with Furniture - Remember how I said I loved the Chalet dollhouse?  Well it is only surpassed by my love for this green dollhouse that is not only made from green materials but also touts many "green" features.  There is a windmill, a solar panel, and a rain barrel.  There is also a "bio facade" used to give shade or adjust that amount of sunlight in the room.

18. Mary Meyer EarthMates, Fuzz That Wuzz 100% Recycled, Wee Pawzzzz Bear - he was once that plastic bottle of water you drank at the park on a hot day.  Now, he is an adorable stuffed animal. These cute and cuddly little guys are made from 100% recycled PET bottles.  

19. Sprig Toys Dolphin Adventure Playset - The Sprig guys are back at it with some really cool new playsets in the adventure series.  This set has two boats (that really float!), two dolphins and a captain that like to explore your bath tub, sand box, or even a local stream.  Made form Sprig Wood once again, this playset is ultra durable and totally green.

20. Wonderworld Eco-Friendly Cooking Center - This play center has plentry of room for multiple children.  Made from rubberwood and non-toxic paints, it will help your little ones cook up a pretend storm.

Hope you enjoyed this year's list and here's to another green holiday!

--Laura M.

The Sprig Eco Recycling Truck might be my favorite toy of the holiday season, but admittedly, I have a soft spot for eco-friendly toys and the fantastic people over at Sprig Toys.  Today, as a special treat, I'll be introducing you to the Amazon Exclusive Sprig Eco Recycling Truck. Not only is it an exclusive, it comes in Amazon Frustration Free Packaging!  And who better to talk about this fun truck than some of the great people over at Sprig, Chris and Steve.  They both have some really good insight into the toy industry at the holidays, why frustration free packaging is important, and why getting kids to "be the batteries" is better for kids and the envirornment. My favorite part of the interview? Chris's quote:"5 million pounds of paper packaging waste is thrown out every holiday season on top of our regular waste load in the US."  That is a little stomach turning, and I am glad Amazon can be part of the solution to this huge problem with our Frustration Free Packaging. Keep reading below for more of this great interview where Chris and Steve tell us about the Eco Recycling Truck and Sprig's plans for the future.

First, introductions- who are you, what do you do for Sprig?

Chris Clemmer, one of the designers and a co-founder of Sprig. I work on toy design, marketing, packaging; sales…we all wear 20 hats here at Sprig.

My name is Steve Markey; I’m the VP of Sales here at Sprig. I work with retailers, sales reps and international distributors to make sure as many people as possible around the world have the opportunity to buy our fantastic toys.

What is Sprig core philosophy in a few sentences?
(Chris) Sprig was born from our desire to create toys that energize children with active, engaging play using smart sustainable design solutions. We want to let kids fill in the blanks instead of paint. We want them to be the batteries. We want to get them off the couch. Ultimately we want kids to play like we used to.

What are the holidays like around Sprig HQ?
(Steve) Holiday time is busy here at Sprig Shedquarters. We’re getting ready for the International Toyfair which is held every February in New York, as well as a trade show in Hong Kong where many of our international customers will be seeing the 2010 products for the first time. But we also find time for fun, including a party for the whole team and their families.

(Chris) BUSY BUSY BUSY. The toy industry is unique in that every holiday season you find yourself out on the trail talking about Sprig’s exciting new toys like Captain Owen’s Dolphin Explorer Boat, while back in our top secret headquarters we are busy engineering toys for the future….Toy Fair is coming!!

What are the holidays like for you and your family?
(Steve) I have three children, so we’re all about playing games (we’re huge board game fans), watching movies and just being together. My wife and I travel a lot for our jobs, so just being at home with no trips on the horizon is a blessing. And, of course, being in Colorado, we get out to the mountains for some skiing and snowboarding.

(Chris) We take the holiday time to visit family. This year we will spend time in New Mexico enjoying quiet time in mountains. It’s always fun for our daughter to get some quality family time in during the holidays. Santa Claus always seems to find us to the surprise of our daughter. Although she still wonders why I make toys and how that works with Santa’s agenda…

I have noticed that much of your “shelf packaging” for your toys is minimal, why did you make this kind of decision about how to display toys?
(Chris) We want our toys to play right out of the box. As a child, the thrill of getting a toy in a box that you can open and instantly play with is rare these days. With our toys, if the little ones can get past the security sticker they will be able to open the box and start to play. No little screwdrivers, no knives, no blister packs, no twist ties…just plain simple fun.
The benefit of not using twist ties and packaging blisters is we eliminate tons of material that usually ends up in landfills. During the holiday season, 5 million pounds of paper packaging waste is thrown out every holiday season on top of our regular waste load in the US. We wanted to be part of the solution and are always looking for ways to improve our packaging to make it as lean as possible.

(Steve) For me, there are two main reasons. Firstly, as an eco-conscious company, we try to reduce the amount of materials we use in our packaging, whether it be the amount of cardboard, or those really annoying twist ties that hold so many toys in place.
Secondly, as parents, we are often frustrated by large boxes with very little in them. We just don’t feel good about shipping vast quantities of air around the world.

Did you have to sacrifice anything else to make these kind of packages work?
(Chris) We are learning and experimenting with our packaging with each generation of toys we produce. With our Eco-Trucks we actually see a sales benefit to using minimal packaging. The Eco-Trucks are very accessible and lightweight allowing children to pick them up on shelf. In some cases we have used closed boxes in order to eliminate twist ties, but we are working on some great new open packaging that will still play right out of the box.
(Steve) Less packaging means less space to tell people about our products, to explain what is actually inside the box, so we have learned to tell our story in the most concise way possible. For example, using graphic icons to show that our toys are paint-free rather than actually spelling it out in words.

Why did you decide to partner with Amazon on Frustration Free Packaging?
(Chris) It makes perfect sense for to partner with Amazon on this, as “Frustration Free” packaging is what we call the “new normal” for Sprig. Designing a package that serves as a shipper is a great way to reduce our impact on raw material usage, as it’s one package for all. No Twist ties and reduced printing were things we do and we especially love it when retailers share the same vision as Sprig.

Tell us a little about the new Amazon Exclusive Eco Recycling Truck.  Where was it made? Why did you decide on a recycling truck?  What makes it different than other toy trucks out there?
(Chris) The Eco-Recycling truck is made in the beautiful Czech Republic (our toys are made in North America and Europe). We decided on a recycling truck as it really fits the message behind the toys. We make our toys out of Sprigwood, which utilizes bits of recycled plastic and sawdust. This bio-composite material is a great alternative to using virgin oil based plastics. Our eco-recycling truck smells like WOOD, is very lightweight, and has fantastic play value. What makes this toy different is its play value. The recycling truck features a great carry/push handle, 2 distinct dump mechanisms, a recycling garbage can, and a fold open truck cab. These features make this toy rich in play and smart in design. We don’t use any paints on our toys and they are also dishwasher safe on the top rack which is great for toys that are shared by lots of kids.

One of the first trucks my son recognized was our local recycling truck.  Do you think kids are more aware of recycling than we were at this age?
(Steve) Absolutely – maybe I’m showing my age here, but I don’t think I even saw a recycling truck as a kid, whereas now, my own kids would not dream of throwing away a bottle or a can into a regular trash can. My 5 year old daughter Ella says it best - “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”.

(Chris) Definitely. When we were kids curbside recycling was very rare so we only had the garbage truck coming by our house in the mornings. It’s great to see curbside recycling become the “new normal” to our youngest generation.  It’s also a focus for a lot of elementary schools around the world as well. We find it refreshing when we hear kids telling their parents about the benefits and need to recycle. They are great little police officers for the planet.

What other plans does Sprig have for the future? Do you see Sprig heading into other directions in toys?
(Chris) While we have primarily focused on preschool toys, Sprig is excited to announce that we will be introducing a line of toddler toys for this upcoming spring. Just in time for earth day, our new Safe and Smart toddler toys will feature stacking, shape sorting, and active push around play. These toys will be made from our exclusive Sprigwood material, will use NO PAINT, and will be made in North America (closer to our material source).

That’s just  a snippet of what is to come from Sprig in 2010. We will leave the rest for another surprise.

(Steve) I’m especially excited about the toddler line Chris just told you about. We’ve taken classic toddler toys and “Sprigified” them. (We don’t just invent toys here, we invent words, too.)
Additionally, we will be introducing new toys to our boys and girls preschool product lines throughout next year, so keep checking back on Amazon.com to see our latest releases.

_________________
Thanks to Chris and Steve.  You can see the whole Sprig line here, as well as the awesome new Amazon Exclusive Eco-Recycling Tuck in Frustration Free Packaging.

--Laura McMullan

In 2004 David Owen wrote an article for the New Yorker called "Green Manhattan" that remains, along with Ian Frazier's first excerpt from Great Plains and Anthony Lane's review of Showgirls, one of the pieces I remember best from that magazine, both for its style and its "Oh my god, of course!" contrarian punch. The article began:

My wife and I got married right out of college, in 1978. We were young and naļve and unashamedly idealistic, and we decided to make our first home in a utopian environmentalist community in New York State. For seven years, we lived, quite contentedly, in circumstances that would strike most Americans as austere in the extreme: our living space measured just seven hundred square feet, and we didn’t have a dishwasher, a garbage disposal, a lawn, or a car. We did our grocery shopping on foot, and when we needed to travel longer distances we used public transportation. Because space at home was scarce, we seldom acquired new possessions of significant size. Our electric bills worked out to about a dollar a day.

The utopian community was Manhattan.

Owen's new book, Green Metropolis, begins, a few slight edits aside, in the very same way, and in both the article and the book he goes on to expand on the point, with devastating glee, that the ideal environmental community is not a rural enclave outfitted with solar panels and a half-acre garden but the dirty, crowded, masterfully efficient metropolis of New York City, in which the only time you see green is when you're following the signs to the 4, 5, or 6 subway lines. The comparative statistics are stunning (bucolic Vermonters, for instance, use three and a half times the gas and four times the electricity of New Yorkers), and easy to comprehend once you think about them. Not only don't Manhattanites drive (they consume gasoline at a rate last seen in the rest of the country in the mid-1920s), they live in small spaces, which encourages them to keep and consume less, they don't have lawns, which means they use less water and pesticide, they rely on the most efficient mechanized transportation system known to mankind (the elevator), and instead of letting heat escape through their roofs and walls, they share it with the neighbors who crowd around them.

Sprawl is the enemy, and Owen argues that it's driven as much by a desire for the standard "green" vision of a proximity to nature and a distance from other people: "Sprawl," he quotes one environmentalist as saying, "is created by people escaping sprawl." None other than Thoreau, he argues, helped set this "American pattern for creeping residential development," and Jefferson was

the prototype of the modern American suburbanite, since for most of his life he lived far outside the central city in a house that was much too big, and he was deeply enamored of high-tech gadgetry and of buying on impulse and on credit, and he embraced a self-perpetuating cycle of conspicuous consumption and recreational home improvement. The standard object of the modern American dream, the single-family home surrounded by grass, is a mini-Monticello.

Owen has relatively few solutions in mind--he's doomful about our oil supplies and caustically skeptical about the prospects for alternative fuels, and his main antidote to sprawl and energy consumption is, with little exaggeration, to make driving more irritating. And he admits with cheerful but still somehow depressing honesty that he's part of the problem too: he and his family moved out to rural Connecticut years ago, and he knows how appealing the countryside ideal is. But what's most heartening about the book is that while many proposed environmental solutions involve either mild, incremental steps that can't possibly thwart such a massive threat or drastic societal transformations that seem impossible to achieve, Owen's proposal is actually standing right in front of us, a century-old utopian experiment lived by millions of Americans each day: "be more like Manhattan." --Tom

Recommended for fans of Jane Jacobs's The Death and Life of American Cities, Tom Vanderbilt's Traffic, and Robert Bryce's Gusher of Lies.