Don’t throw out your child car and booster seats. Recycle them!

Posted on by TakeActionBurlington
Dropping off car seats for recycling.
Dropping off used car seats to be recycled. Image courtesy of Red Propeller.

Update: In 2023 ATMO and Babies R Us came together to recycle child car seats for the next three years. All Toys R Us/Babies R Us locations in Ontario accept expired, damaged or outgrown child car seats for recycling. You will receive an in-store coupon of the value of your cost to recycle your seats.

Did you know that it’s almost Waste Reduction Week (WRW) in Canada? To celebrate WRW the third week of October, this month’s “Take Action Burlington” posts are dedicated to what you can do to keep your old things out of the landfill.

Child car and booster seats

Unless you have little ones in your life that use a car seat, you probably don’t know that car seats have an expiry date. This may have you asking, “why do car seats expire?”

Transport Canada says there are several reasons:

  • Frequent use and exposure to sunlight can damage and weaken plastic;
  • Things spill and seats need to be cleaned so webbing, buckles, adjusters and other parts may stop working safely;
  • The history or condition of the car seat or booster seat becomes hard to check. For example, was it in a crash? Was it stored in a way that caused damage to some parts?;
  • Safety regulations and standards may have changed, so safer products may now be on the market; and
  • If you’re not the original owner, you may miss safety recalls.

So how many car seats are we talking about? A whopping 250,000 car seats used in Ontario might end up in landfills each year! Thanks to a company called Red Propeller, you can keep your used car seat out of the landfill for a small fee.

Who is ATMO Recycling Ltd?

ATMO is a social impact recycling company that keeps unwanted recyclable material, such as child car seats, out of the landfill and employs people with physical, mental or social barriers.

Did you know?

You can set up an appointment to visit Red Propeller’s facility to learn about the process first hand? If interested, please visit redpropeller.ca/car-seat-recycling.

Take Action Burlington. With a little effort, we can recycle those hard to recycle items. Collectively, we can make a difference!

car seats dropped off
Used car seats dropped off for recycling. Image courtesy of Red Propeller.

This post was updated twice, in Dec. 2021 to note that the program no longer appeared to be active (https://atmo.ca/) and in Jan. 2024 to note that in 2023 ATMO and Babies R Us came together to recycle child car seats for the next three years. All Toys R Us/Babies R Us locations in Ontario accept expired, damaged or outgrown child car seats for recycling. 

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