Did you know that carbon footprint of a child is estimated to be 58.6 tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions per year? Incredible isn’t it?
And hardly surprising when it comes down to the amount of stuff kids need as they grow, from buggies to music equipment, boardgames and more.
Gone are the days though when you have to buy – and keep – everything.
The sharing economy is really taking off amongst parents who want to reduce their impact on the planet, declutter and sharing the things we already have with those that can get more use of them. Are you ready to join them?
These new platforms (apps and websites) make it easy to share, swap, sell or gift kids essentials with ease, helping you to save money, help other parents AND help the planet. Wins all round.
5 Platforms To Share, Rent Or Swap Kids’ Essentials: From Buggys To Ballet Pumps
Share And Swap Kids’ Equipment
It’s time to swap! How much stuff has your child accumulated over the years, from short lived hobbies, sports gear, musical equipment and more? And what do you do with it? Mostly hoard it.
Kidd3r want to change all that and free up these hardly used items to enable less waste, help parents buy less and also make it more affordable for kids to get involved in hobbies, sports and tech without the large capital outlay.
The platform is split into clothing, sports, music, tech with items on there from kids’ scooters to telescopes and games consoles. You can either swap directly or swap for credits to use on the site to ‘buy’ something else.
Help other kids discover things your kids have gotten a kick out of, make more with the stuff we already have accumulated and discover a sustainable parent community that wants to share.
Subscribe To A Buggy Rental
Every parent goes through at least one buggy right? But what happens when you’re done or when your child grows out of the one you have?
If you’re trying to be a sustainably minded parent, the use and dispose nature of essential kids’ stuff can really grate on you.
Buggi want to help the planet and help parents use less stuff. They offer a subscription service to give you access to top of the range, reconditioned buggies, that you rent for as long as you need and then upgrade or return. Choose from brands like Bugaboo, BabyZen and Stokke, with models suitable for newborns right through to prams that cater for two kids of different ages.
Each buggy is reconditioned, professionally cleaned and reused to reduce the number of single use buggies that end up in landfill.
Rent And Return Kids Clothes
How many clothes have your kids been through already? How quickly did they grow out of super cute clothing? New rental service, thelittleloop, want to tackle this issue and cut down the carbon impact that the global fashion industry (which includes kidswear of course) has on the planet.
Did you know renting your children’s clothes reduces their water and carbon footprint by 75%? Research has shown that if we extend the life of clothes by just three months it could reduce the UK’s carbon footprint by around 10%, so think about clothes that are rented four or five times?
So how does it work?
Subscribe to thelittleloop (pebble readers get 10% off their first month’s subscription with the code PEBBLE10).
Buy credits on site and use them to rent a new wardrobe of ethically made kids’ clothes. £50 gets you 100 credits which is enough for around six items.
Keep them as long as they are useful and return them in the brand’s reusable easy to post bag. Easy. Kids clothing just got ethical.
Sign Up To A Toy Sharing System
How long do you kids play with toys before they get bored? Days, weeks, months? According to Whirli, nearly one in four toys purchased are neglected within a single week. With the average UK child receiving more than £300 worth of toys each year, that’s a lot of unused play things either sitting unloved or sent to landfill.
Whirli offers a clever solution for kids to around eight years old.
Use the platform’s tokens to choose a number of toys (there are over 1000 to chose from, from dolls to brain developing puzzles), which are then packaged up and sent to you. There’s a real focus on sustainable and wooden toys too, and games that develop STEM skills.
Once they’ve been cast aside, send them back for cleaning and restoring for someone else to play with and your tokens get restored, so you can use them again.
Any toy your child falls in love with and won’t let out of their sticky hand, you can buy for less than market price. Subscriptions start at £9.99 a month.
You can also use a gift voucher on the platform so a kid can choose their own toy.
Regift Kids Toys To Save Them From Landfill
Young Planet wants to reduce the huge number of toys that end up in landfill, and is using the sharing economy to repurpose those items to other kids and parents in need.
Young Planet is a cashless app, which has helped share 5,000 kids’ toys, clothes and other essentials in London in the last year and it is now expanding nationally across the UK.
It helps bring the cost of kids’ stuff down for parents feeling the pinch and also helps keep items already produced in circulation for longer, reducing the need to buy new.
Some essential items currently available on the app include John Lewis babygrows, Clarks shoes, and a BabyStyle carrycot, with some higher-value items including a Mamas and Papas solid oak cot bed and Joie Car seat
What do you think? Have you used one of these services? Is renting the most sustainable way forward? Let us know in the comments below.
