Car Seat Recycling Efforts

My quest for a new car seat for Connor is becoming quite an adventure.  He is getting very heavy and I am ready to be done with our infant car seat.  I started with looking to see if there are any car seats manufactured with a responsibility to the environment.  So far I have not found anything like that.  There are companies that make covers for car seats with organic fabrics, but that is as much as I could find.  My next idea was to purchase a used seat from craigslist.  I began to look into buying a used car seat to see what I should look out for.  I had heard in the past that car seats should not be bought used if they had been in an accident.  In order to avoid this you should trust the person you buy the seat from.  

I began to dig more to find out what criteria I should follow when deciding to purchase a used car seat.  I found out that car seats can only be used for 6-7 years and then must be disposed of!  The reason for this is the fact that the when the plastic is used in the hot car on a regular basis it begins to breakdown, causing the seat to loose its original strength.  The solution for disposing of these car seats is to smash them so that they are no longer useable and someone cannot pick one out of a dumpster for use.  This solution fixes the problem of people using unsafe seats for their children, but does not help with our growing landfills.

Picture piles and piles of old plastic car seats covering our earth.  Something must be done to make a change; we cannot be throwing away this plastic and further polluting our planet.  We must be recycling these seats.  

I began to research recycling car seats and found that the plastic is recyclable, but that many are not recycled because the local plants do not take them.  I found that car seat recycling events have been started in several states, mostly out west (i.e. Washington, Oregon and Colorado).  The nearest event that took place on the east coast was in New Jersey.  The article about the even can be found here: http://earth911.com/blog/2009/04/28/nj-parent-starts-car-seat-recycling-program/.  I decided that I could possibly try to put together an event in the Baltimore area to start a car seat recycling movement.  I e-mailed Jennifer Carcich, the mother who put together the New Jersey event to see what her strategy was to get things started. 

Jennifer Carcich told me that she had a long journey to get the event rolling.  Here is the e-mail she sent:

“Our car seat adventure started several years ago as I did call out local Department of Public Works (DPW) and county DPW but neither took #5 plastic. We then found a private company that takes #5 plastic and were trying to organize a car seat drop off day with Babies R Us and this private company.  Babies R us was very much on board and were even going to see if they could get PODS to donate a crate to collect and ship the car seats off in, but in the mean time our town got a NEW contract with a recycling company (funny enough it was the same guy we had found) and now takes plastics #1-7 curbside.  So, we just sent the town a letter about car seats and they agreed to allow DISASSEMBLED car seats to go out along with curbside recycling.  We held the car seat recycling day to teach the public how to disassemble car seats and to take some seats from nonresidents as well.  It was a huge success and now the people of Morristown can recycle their seats any trash day.  I do not live in Morristown, I technically live in Morris Township so I cannot put my car seats curbside.  I found another solution for nonresidents, two business in Morristown will take old car seats and disassemble them and recycle them  Shade Tree Garage, on Washington Ave. and Marty’s reliable cycle, on Speedwell Ave. Both places have the tools and manpower to take them apart and Shade Tree hires their own recycling company (as many mechanic shops do).”

I have since contacted Baltimore County DPW, who told me simply that they do not have the facility to recycle #5 plastics.  In response to their e-mail to me I e-mailed the County Executive with my concerns about the lack of recycling in the Baltimore County area and was sent a response that they will look in to the issue and get back to me.  Next, I e-mailed Baltimore City to see if the car seats could be recycled there.  I got no response from the city, but looked at their website which says they recycle just about anything, but does not specify car seats.  I called Baltimore City’s DPW and spoke with someone that was less than helpful about informing me on whether or not the seats can be recycled, she just told me that it was not specified in their contract and that it should be the responsibility of the manufacturer to take-back the seats for recycling.  Next I e-mailed the company that Baltimore City has their contract with to determine if they will recycle the car seats.  I am waiting for a response from the recycle center, but will be calling them next week if I do not hear back. 

Please contact me if you have any ideas or have begun any efforts to recycle car seats.  I need all the help I can get!

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