Green Brief: Plastics in the playroom
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, April 8, 2026
Toys have been around for over four millennia, educating, exercising and entertaining our children. Playing with toys supports early cognitive development, and also contributes to social learning and emotional regulation. Toys were originally made by hand using natural materials like wood, rocks and clay, with plastics entering nearly a hundred years ago when Legos were introduced in the 1930s.
The industrial revolution led to mass production of toys in factories, using materials that greatly evolved and were influenced by societal trends, such as wartime needs, when toy soldiers shifted from metal to plastic.
The toy industry is the most plastic-intensive industry in the world with nearly 90% of children’s toys on the market made of plastic. And to top it off, about 80% of toys end up in landfills, incinerators, or rivers and the ocean.
Although plastics are great materials for manufacture, many toys contain a spectrum of plasticizer additives, many of which have been found to be toxic and can poison and compromise the health of our children. Plasticizers are used to control hardness or elasticity and can account for 5% to 50% of a toy’s weight. Approximately 25% of toys may contain harmful chemical additives, including plasticizers, flame retardants and fragrances.
Luckily, regulations have started to limit the alphabet soup of compounds being used. For example, phthalates (DEHP, DBP, BBP) with strong research-based toxicities were banned in toys at levels above 0.1wt% in 1998 (EU) and 2008 (US), and similarly toxic BPA was banned in baby bottles in Canada in 2008, the EU in 2011, and the US in 2012. This led to the development of alternative but chemically similar plasticizers (DINP, DINCH, TOTM, and citrates for phthalates and BPS/BPF for BPA), which have yet to receive adequate toxicity research.
The toy industry is trying to be greener: German toymaker Playmobil now makes their entire toddler range from 90% plant-based materials and Mattel is aiming for 100% recycled or bio-based plastic materials in its products by 2030.
What about the plasticizers in plastic toys? Are they poisoning our youth?
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been trying to answer these questions by funding several large research programs. One example, the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Cohort, is a large, U.S.-based longitudinal research consortium launched in 2016 to study how environmental exposures in early life, including before conception, during pregnancy, and across childhood, influence health and development.
ECHO synthesizes data from dozens of pre-existing maternal and pediatric cohort studies into one large dataset, spanning diverse populations across the US, including follow-up on tens of thousands of participants. ECHO research shows that plastic-associated chemicals are ubiquitous in U.S. children and pregnant women.
An overarching pattern resulting from ECHO research is that each regulatory restriction on one chemical has been followed by rapid substitution with structurally related alternatives that were presumed safe based on limited data. However, biomonitoring studies 5–15 years later found these chemicals rising in children’s bodies with similar or worse toxicological profiles. Modifications or replacements may not be the answer.
We don’t have space to address the many hundreds of research studies here; you can learn lots by visiting echochildren.org.
Now for the most exciting news for the island: The Choose Plastic Free Campaign of Zero Waste Vashon, Vashon Youth and Family Services and the Vashon Health Care District are honored to welcome Dr. Sheela Sathyanarayana, who will present a talk, “KIDS & PLASTIC: What you need to know about children’s health and exposure to chemicals in plastic,” at the United Methodist Church (17928 Vashon Hwy SW) on Sunday, April 12, 2026, from 2-4 p.m. All are welcome; the event is free.
Dr. Sathyanarayana is a pediatrician from the University of Washington and the Seattle Children’s Research Institute who leads research focused on environmental exposures and children’s health, with a specific focus on endocrine-disrupting chemicals in plastics.
This information hits close to home for us. As new grandparents of Murphy June, we watch every toy go into her mouth. As a pediatrician, Mary’s heart breaks with concern over what our good intentions (child development toys) are doing to other aspects of children’s health. And as stewards of the Earth, we are also concerned about the fate of these plastics in the environment. We look forward to being enlightened on April 12 and hope you can join us.
Steve Bergman is a geologist, Zero Waste Vashon board member and Whole Vashon Project advisor. Mary Bergman, MD, is a retired pediatrician.
