An Open letter to dog toy suppliers.

Hello everyone, I'm back again this week on the subject of dog toys and there disposal. You may remember a few weeks ago I did a toy box de-clutter and was left with more than few old toys, that were no longer fit for purpose.
Following on from that I spent a mind numbing amount of time trying to figure out to do with the left overs; the destiny of toys after the box, left me feeling rather powerless as a consumer and frustrated that suppliers and manufactures were telling us that we should be replacing these products when they show signs of 'wear' but are deliberately leaving out a method of disposal.

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Now some people I have spoken to about this have said that surely in would just go in the bin? And that is entirely my point.
Just because the toy goes out of sight into the bin to be collected at the road side and driven away doesn't mean that it has some how vanished!

It seems increasingly clear that from the manufactures and retailers point of view, once we the consumer have purchased the toy it is then our problem to deal with it's disposal.

That might sound obvious, we own the product, we bought it we should be responsible for it. The availability of a range of dog toys that are suitable and safe for our dogs may be huge but once you factor in disposal that would avoid landfill your accessible options seem to plummet.
Add to this that many of the dog toy labels that I see provide little to no information about what the toy is made from, and therefore how it can be disposed of; so it can be difficult to make an informed choice.

I wanted to get some feedback from some of the companies that supply some of these dog toys, so I sent a few emails to some different manufactures and suppliers. They went a bit like this: 

Dear Pets at Home,
As a dog owner I love to buy my dogs toys to play with, whether it’s a vinyl squeaky ball, or a Benjamin bear (which is a favourite).
I see Pets at Home stores in so many places, with a huge variety of dog toys in all manner of shapes and sizes.
Everyone that I have seen carries some sort of notice or safety advice regarding supervising dogs at play and to replace a toy when worn or damaged.
Can you please clarify what Pets at home intends that I, the consumer should do with your products, once it has been deemed appropriate to replace the toy?
I have as yet been unable to find one of your products that states how it should be disposed of.
I would greatly appreciate some clarification on the matter.
Kind regards
Rebecca.

As of yet I haven't heard back from any of the companies I contacted. Please feel free to copy this letter to email any companies or business that you feel could do with addressing Pet product waste. I will keep you all up to date with any replies I get on my facebook page.

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