5 Reasons Why Wooden Toys Are Better for Everyone

Whether it’s your child’s birthday coming up or you want to get a jumpstart on next holiday’s shopping, you may be browsing for the best toys to give your child. Your immediate impulse may be to buy the cheap toy that’s being advertised everywhere. The decision to purchase this toy over others, in particular, a wooden toy, could make more of an impact than you realize. Not to mention, you can buy wooden toys online. So, before you head to the toy shop, consider these reasons for buying a wooden toy instead of a plastic one.

1. Recyclable

Because of the durability of wooden toys, they last longer. This is particularly why wooden toys are better than plastic toys. Because they last longer, they can be handed down from generation to generation. Depending on who you buy the toy from, the wood used to make the toy can also be reused or recycled wood, which is a green practice. If for whatever reason, your child doesn’t want to keep the toy once they grow up, that wood can also be recycled and used for other purposes. Plastic can’t do that.

2. Durability

Let’s face it, cheap toys are cheap for a reason. They break easy. Children, especially younger children, seem to make it their purpose in life to break their toys as quickly as they’re given to them. This is due largely in part to the fact that plastic toys are cheaply made with parts that are easy to remove and shatter or bend. Wooden toys are not. They’re thick and made to last. So, not only will the toy itself last longer–which means having to buy fewer toy replacements for you–also means that less of those plastic toys are made. When considering the environmental impact plastic has, reducing the production of plastic in any shape you can, will greatly impact the environment in an excellent way.

3. Safety

Another one of the many benefits of wooden toys is its safety. Plastic toys can easily break which means kids are exposed to potential sharp edges and toxic materials. This marks a whole slew of the advantages of wooden toys over plastics. They’re simply safer. Both for the environment and for your child. Plastic is often created using toxic materials that then escape into the environment. Those toxic materials often leave some form of residue in the toys and depending on the age of your child, they may be sucking on them. Wooden toys are made from a natural source and reduce the amount of those toxic materials. They’re made greenly and don’t negatively impact the environment.

4. Strengthens Imagination

It may be surprising to know that wooden toys actually have a stronger impact on your child’s imagination than plastic toys. This is due largely in part to the simplistic design of the wooden toy. Where plastic toys can be rendered to create perfect replicas of certain objects, wooden toys cannot always afford the same perfection. As such, it requires children to imagine the realism themselves. In addition, there are many wooden puzzles to choose from as well as other educational toys that are made from wood specifically designed to promote a child’s imagination by equipping them with the tools to play how they want to play.

5. No Small Electronics

A common staple for many plastic toys is that they come with small electronic parts to make all of those annoying sounds. These electronic parts are then tossed into the trash after the toy breaks and sit in a landfill. Electronics, batteries, and other e-waste have a terrible impact on the environment. By purchasing a wooden toy, you not only reduce the amount of electronic waste that ends up in a landfill, but you also give your child an opportunity to indulge their imagination and make those sounds themselves.