What do you do when friends and family won’t support your green habit? We asked author Paige Wolf, author of the book,
Spit That Out: The Overly Informed Parent’s Guide to Raising Children in the Age of Environmental Guilt for her advice. The following is an excerpt from a chapter in the book, you’ll want to read the rest for more tips on living green without guilt.

You’ve loaded up the crib with wooden toys, mastered the art of five-minute organic baby food, and have recycling down to a science. And then your mother comes to visit.

For all their well-meaning wishes and abundance of love for their grandchildren, many of our parents come from the generation where formula was queen and Pine-Sol was king.

We, the new generation of frustrated mothers, have tried gently explaining our concerns to our families and even register holiday wish lists with appropriate products. But our parents simply can’t see the harm of a few plastic toys and just couldn’t resist buying your little munchkin that Dora the Explorer Activity Tote (laced with lead and arsenic, according to Healthytoys.org, a Michigan-based environmental advocacy organization).

In the meantime, we know Grandma’s gonna wonder where Johnny’s new toy truck is, but we don’t want the answer to be, “gradually leaching cadmium into his mouth.”

So What Are We Supposed to Do With All This Unwanted Stuff?

Many of us simply pack up unwanted offerings, re-gift them to less environmentally conscious friends, or give it to charities that will be happy to take anything. But is it in good conscience to give to someone who may not look a re-gifted non-wooden horse in its lead-painted mouth? By donating bags of plastic toys to shelters, we may be inadvertently poisoning less economically fortunate children.

Comedian and mother Lisa Landry says when her mother sends her Chinese-made, lead-painted toys — no matter how many times she asks her not to – she throws them out, believing they’ll do less harm in a landfill than in a children’s shelter.

“They have enough problems — they don’t need slow, toy-induced brain damage too.” — Lisa Landry, Los Angeles

Alas, the mountain of stuff grows, and while we know we should feel thankful for the abundance laid before us, we also know we are better off without the contaminated clutter.

Though she’s aware the landfills don’t need any help growing, new mother Amy finds the only solution is simply throwing unwanted toys in the trash.

“For Christmas, my in-laws bought my son some really cute Phillies sippy cups, but they weren’t BPA-free. Rather than make a whole to-do about it, I told my husband why I was concerned and threw them away.” — Amy, Flourtown, PA.

Chrissy is a firm believer in returning items to the big box stores from whence they came.

“I exchange gifts that don’t fit in with our lifestyle. I’ve even gone as far as repackaging a recent birthday gift because it was ripped open an enthusiastic gift-giver during the party. As soon as the guests left, I repackaged it and it’s going back. It’s like 30 plastic pieces which she already owned in wood.” — Chrissy, Bucks County, PA

Melinda, co-founder of Greenmoms.com, says while she would not re-gift an item she wouldn’t want her own child to have, she would give it to a resale shop.

“I think giving something as a present is different than supplying a product for a store to sell as inventory where they likely have many of the same anyway. People who are looking for a product like that would probably buy it new anyway, and if they see it at a resale store for less, maybe they would buy it second hand.” — Melinda, El Granada, CA

Of course, Melinda says, anything that is clearly toxic —containing lead or the subject of a recall — only goes back to the original store or in the trash.

Passing along things we wouldn’t trust for our own health is a tricky topic. Save up unwanted items and seek out the most return-friendly store or resale shop. But when safety is really in doubt, you may have to throw it out.

What do YOU do with unwanted items?

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