By Rita Colorito on November 29, 2011 in
My family is already on our third car seat. We're big into donating and recycling, but we couldn't do either with our first infant car seat: Most charitable organizations won't accept donated car seats because of liability issues and most municipal recycling facilities can't handle the extensive labor involved to break down a car seat, so you can't just stick one in your recycle bin.
So, we left our car seat on the curb with a "Free, Please Take" sign. Our seat had several years left before it surpassed the expiration date, hadn't been recalled, and hadn't been in any car accidents, the main reasons most charities won't take them. And because places like Goodwill or Salvation Army can't verify the latter at all, most of us with these backseat behemoths on our hands are stuck trying to find another, responsible way to make sure they don't end up clogging a landfill.
Luckily there are ways to recycle car seats, if you know where to look, or who to bother.
Ways to recycle:
If you have a few dollars...
BabyEarth, a retail chain and online retailer based in Austin, Texas, offers a nationwide baby-gear recycling program, BabyEarthRENEW. The program accepts and recycles not only car seats, but also strollers, swings, jumpers, high chairs and diaper bags. You pay the shipping costs. In return, you'll get a $5 coupon for the next time you shop with them. Shipping details are on the website. If you're located in the Austin area, you can simply drop off the items for recycling at the company's flagship store in Round Rock, Texas.
At least one car seat manufacturer gets our frustration. California-based Clek recently announced that its customers can return their Clek car seat for recycling, part of the company's endorsement of Extended Producer Responsibility, a policy tool whereby manufacturers assume responsibility for the entire life cycle of products and packaging they produce. To recycle your Clek car seat, follow these steps:
1. Package seat in a box.
2. Contact Clek (customerservice@clekinc.com) or call 1-866-656-2462 to arrange to receive a shipping label. The fixed $20.00 fee can be paid with Visa or MasterCard.
3. Clek will send you a UPS shipping label and a $20 coupon that can be used on Clek's online store or at participating retailers.
4. Drop off the package at your nearest UPS store, or for an additional fee of $5.00 UPS will pick up your package at your location.
If you want something local...
Most municipal waste facilities don't have the manual labor to tear apart car seats for recycling. To find a local recycling facility or program, you'll have to do some digging. First, call your municipal waste facility to see whether they'll take just the plastic parts if you disassemble it yourself. Ask if they know of any local facility or organization that recycles car seats or if they plan on holding any special-item recycling days. Many municipalities hold these special one-day events for folks to drop off hazardous waste or to recycle old computers, cell phones and other hard-to-recycle items.
Through user updates, Car-Seat.org tries to maintain a list of car seat recycling centers by state. But don't get discouraged if you cannot find something on this list. According to the Colorado Children's Automobile Safety Foundation, which runs one of the oldest local car seat recycling programs in the country, there are more than 100 such programs either up and running or about to be operational in the United States. An Internet search under "car seat recycling" might yield some results.
When neither is possible, proper disposal
If none of these recycling options work for you -- and to keep bin divers from snagging and reusing old and potentially dangerous car seats -- follow these steps to ensure proper disposal:
- Disassemble the seat, cutting and taking apart the straps and seat pad, so it is unusable.
- Or, at the very minimum, mark the car seat "Unusable" if you can't recycle it.
If your car seat has passed its expiration date, don't hand it down to another child or give it to a friend. Manufacturers place expiration dates on car seats because the components can weaken and degrade over time.