Recently, a friend asked me what it meant for a toy to be environmentally friendly.  "What does it take for a toy to be green?  Does that mean you throw it down on the ground when you're done with it and it reabsorbs back into the earth?"

There are many ways in which toys can be environmentally friendly.  Unfortunately, there are some toymakers who clearly engage in green washing -- for example, promoting a doll as green simply because she comes with a reusable shopping bag bearing a green recycle symbol.  Most toymakers promoting their products as green, however, can back up their claims with solid facts.  There are varying shades of green, but the Yin and Yang of market demand and cost of production help weigh the balance to guide toymakers to designs that are not only green but also great toys.  After
all, even the greenest toy is still a waste if no one wants to play with it or no one can afford it.

From toys which are entirely biodegradable to toys which are made of recycled and other environmentally friendly materials, toymakers are thinking green and creating not only new products, but also new manufacturing processes.  This is not a hemp-braided, wooden-beaded, happy hippy kind of green toy revolution.  It is the kind of revolution in which those who are not going green will quickly find themselves left behind. 

Today's best environmentally friendly toymakers are creative, business savvy, and making high quality products that sell well in the mainstream market.  They make it easy to fall in love with their products first and notice they are green later.  Consumers would be hard-pressed to pick them out of a line-up of "normal toys."

Toymakers such as Sprig Toys, Kathe Kruse, Plan Toys, and bluntly named Green Toys are not satisfied to make toys that are simply environmentally friendly.  They also lead in innovation, quality, and style.

Sprig Toys sprang onto the eco-toy scene with an impressive showing at Toy Fair New York in February 2008.  They wowed attendees with their Sprig Adventures line of rugged, kid-powered vehicles made from proprietary Sprig Wood, an environmentally friendly composite made from sawdust and recycled plastic.  They offered "Adventure Guides" made from the same composite as a compliment to the vehicles.  Green through and through, Sprig products sell in colorful recyclable paperboard packaging, some of which even bears imagery intended to be cut out and used as additional play pieces.  Sprig's products are a deep, dark, true green -- not just green-washed.  

Yet it is not just new toymakers that are bringing green toys to market.  Well-established toy icons such as the Kathe Kruse company of Germany are responding to consumer desire for environmentally friendly goods for
children.  Kathe Kruse is well-known for creating and selling beautiful, hand-crafted dolls for over one-hundred years and is very socially conscious.  Strongly rooted in the German toy making tradition, the company's tendency has long been to use natural components such as wood and cotton for making its toys.  So perhaps, Kathe Kruse's development of an organic line is part innovation and part return to tradition. 

While some toymakers have found their way to going green through new innovation and some perhaps in part by tradition, others still have found their way through practical problem solving.  Plan Toys of Thailand, it seems, is a bit of a pragmatic genius.  They take rubber trees at the end of their latex-producing lives and make them into lovely toys.  It prevents the tree from being wasted and produces wonderful educational toys as a result.  Plan has even developed a special non-formaldehyde glue that is both more child-safe and environmentally-friendly.  Environmental stewardship and dedication to education seem equal driving forces at Plan Toys.  They have received awards in recognition of both.  For 2009, these motivators coalesced in the introduction of Plan Toys' Green Dollhouse, one of the most well-received toys at Toy Fair New York 2009.  Complete with solar panels, a wind turbine, and recycling bins, the Green Dollhouse is a great tool for teaching children about being environmentally responsible, as well as being made in an environmentally friendly way.

Green Toys is another overachiever in the arena of practical problem solving.  Their toys are made from recycled milk jugs and packaged in recycled cardboard.  From beginning to end, every step of the process, from milk container recycling to toy production to final assembly occurs in California.  The toys are made from an abundant recyclable material and they have less distance to travel to children's homes here in the United States, conserving environmental resources and reducing the emission of greenhouse gases during transportation.  In fact, to explain how much energy is saved by turning recycled milk jugs into toys, Green Toys explains on their web site that on average, every pound of recycled milk jugs used in the making of Green Toys saves energy equal to 3,000 AAA batteries, enough energy to power a TV set for a whole three weeks, or enough electricity to keep a laptop computer running for a month.

Regardless of how each of these companies came to the green toy market, they are here to stay.  Their products are among the top toys featured in television and print, with Sprig appearing in ABC News Now, Fox Business, FoxNews.com, and Parenting Magazine, just to name a few, and Green Toys' Sand Play Set appearing in a park scene of popular television series "Brothers and Sisters."  Smart toy makers are going green, and green is going mainstream.