Charlotte Liebling, the creator of Loved Before, will advise you on what to do with old stuffed animals.
I’m sure we have all had at least one stuffed animal as a kid!
But do you recall what happened to it once you were over it? Most of us, of course, put them in the trash.
None of us really think about a toy, but these stuffed animals have a major detrimental effect on the environment. It is estimated about 80% of all toys worldwide end up in landfills, accounting for a total of 6% of the entire plastic waste globally.
Many of these toys are made using plastic pellets or synthetic materials, which can take centuries to break down.
And Charlotte Liebling from London, UK, had a similar thought while working at a thrift store around eight years ago.
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As an avid collector of plush toys, she expressed her sadness to the Washington Post over the sight of mounds of donated plush toys and stuffies being finally put into trash cans.
Because she still finds solace in her toys, Liebling continues to place a high emotional and sentimental value on them.
She decided to find a new purpose for these previously owned toys two years later. To implement her ideas, she founded “Loved Before,” an eco-friendly “soft-toy adoption agency,” in 2019.
When people donate their used stuffies, Loved Before, cleans, and at times refurbishes the toys, before reselling them online for around $10 – $15 plus shipping costs.
In the last five years, Liebling has collected and resold around 60,000 toys and these plushies are available at three Selfridges department stores across England.
The plush toys are either dropped off at Loved Before’s Bedfordshire office or sent by postal mail. Stuffies from several resale stores are also donated to the charity.
About half of Liebling’s earnings are donated to charitable causes; this year, some of the money will benefit Make-a-Wish UK.
Out of all the plushies donated to Loved Before, 95% are reusable, while the ones considered to be unsafe are recycled.
Liebling says, that however worn out or old the toys might look, she can still find them new homes.
Once received all the plushies undergo a thorough high-temperature steam cleaning and if required they are added more stuffing or repaired based on their condition.
The website of Loved Before also mentions a brief background of the plushie along with its description.
At least 50-100 stuffed animals are renovated every day by Liebling and her team. And every stuffie takes about one to five hours of work before posting it on their website.
Every Monday she adds new toys to her existing batch and most of them are sold out on the same day.
Liebling sells her toys to around 25 countries across the world with the United States being at the no. 2 position after Britain. She hopes to establish a center in the United States soon.
Liebling believes in the philosophy of giving “secondhand a second chance,” and a child would never be able to tell if a toy is brand new or gently used.
She has many happy customers posting great reviews of shopping guilt-free plushies from her store.
This answers the initial question well, and you undoubtedly know what to do with old stuffed animals.
