From junk to toy - a sustainable way of playing

Abstract

Play is a fundamental activity for children and is playing a vital role in their development. During this process, toys are important props for them. With their children’s best interests at heart, parents are buying their children new toys restlessly. However on the other hand, with every new toy being produced the environment would have to suffer more from energy-exploitation. Looking from both children and environment’s perspective, is there a more sustainable way of playing that could satisfy both parties? From junk to toy is a project and study built to raise awareness of sustainability in children’s world and at the same time fulfills children’s playing needs. It aims to get children playing more with household recycling and get their imagination and creativity triggered during the process. Both research and hands-on experiments have been employed as methods to achieve the goal. The results became thoughts concerning food packaging design which has an intended after use as part of the primary objectives, encouraging children to play with food packaging as well as introducing sustainability subtly to people.