A life cycle assessment of the environmental impact of children's toys

Abstract

Quantifying product impact is one way to make the environmental consequences of purchases clear to consumers and retailers. This paper provides a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the environmental impacts of common children's toys. We compare 3 Lego™ sets, 1 Barbie™, 1 Jenga game, 1 plush dog, 1 plush dog with battery components, and 1 Marble Frenzy™ game, each representing a larger category of toy. After determining the materials in each toy, we built these toys in OpenLCA with existing materials data from LCA databases. Our results showed that a Lego Star Wars set had the highest eutrophication potential with the largest single contribution to impact from injection molding. This Lego set also had the highest GHG (Greenhouse Gas) emissions due to the use of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic. Jenga had the highest acidification impact but the lowest GWP of all the toys despite having the highest mass. Our results indicate low GHG emissions and eutrophication potential of wood as a toy material. Wood's acidification potential, however, was the highest of all studied toy materials since impacts included land management for forestry though final wood processing. While plastic had a higher impact per mass than wood, the type of plastic used was important in determining the GHG emissions: ABS and polyvinylchloride (PVC) composition was lower impact than nylon granulate, and other plastics. Since our functional units determined impact per twenty hours of use over 2 years, increased toy longevity was one option to reduce toy impact, though even increased toy longevity should be combined with design for sustainability coupled with transparent environmental labeling to communicate the environmental value of low impact toys to consumers.