The Eco Science Toys (Letter d.) kit is nice and all. Very D.I.Y. They've included some of the parts (new, presumably) in the box, but you'll have to gather the rest of the parts (the recycling part) to make the toys. But of course, you'll have to buy the kit first.
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Fortunately, that's not how it goes at arvindguptatoys.com. When Indian toy inventor Arvind Gupta calls his website Toys from Trash, he's NOT kidding. You won't have to cough up a single cent (except maybe for the occasional glue and fancy paper).
For five years now, his Toys from Trash has been featuring, well, toys that are really from trash: paper plates, plastic cups, ballpen ink refills, coke cans, buttons, CDs, ink cartridges, matchboxes, ballpen caps, strings, broken electrical switches, old toothbrushes, ice cream sticks, PET bottles.
Or else, he uses organic materials: seed pods, sticks, leaves, you name it. You can't have a greener toy than the ones in his site. The motto seems to be: you don't need brand-new toys from Toys R Us to have a happy childhood. (Actually, the site's motto is: "The best thing a child can do with a toy is break it!")
I suspect Mr. Gupta is the kind of man you can put on a island and he can still make a toy out of a coconut. Wait, he already has one.
Or else, he uses organic materials: seed pods, sticks, leaves, you name it. You can't have a greener toy than the ones in his site. The motto seems to be: you don't need brand-new toys from Toys R Us to have a happy childhood. (Actually, the site's motto is: "The best thing a child can do with a toy is break it!")
I suspect Mr. Gupta is the kind of man you can put on a island and he can still make a toy out of a coconut. Wait, he already has one.
But more than just a collection of toys that inspire kids to save the planet, Toys from Trash is all about teaching science and making it fun for them. So you get all these ingenious little contraptions and experiments with some underlying scientific principles in them, designed to explain magnetism and Newton's laws, for instance, or why the Earth's pole flattens as it spins.
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In an interview, Gupta was asked why he chose to do something which most people don't do.
His answer: I am a product of the seventies. The political slogan in those days was: Go to the people. Love them, live with them.
Start from what they know. Build on what they have.
Like many others, I just responded to a genuine need of my time.
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For an eco-toy you don't have to build at all, heres the Mahogany seed helicopter
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