Mattel PlayBack: How To Recycle Barbie, Matchbook Cars, MEGA Toys

ACROSS AMERICA — Mattel is taking back some of its most popular toys.

Don’t worry: Mattel PlayBack is not the corporate equivalent of a timeout.

Rather, families whose kids have outgrown their Barbie dolls, Matchbox cars and MEGA toys can print out a free shipping label, pack them up and return them to the manufacturer, the El Segundo, California-based toymaker said Monday.

Additional toys will be added to help Mattel reach its goal of using 100 percent recycled, recyclable or bio-based plastic materials in toys and packaging by 2030.

The company’s toys “are made to last and be passed on from generation to generation,” Mattel President and Chief Operating Officer Richard Dickson said in a news release. He added that the PlayBack program “is a great example of this, enabling us to turn materials from toys that have lived their useful life into recycled materials for new products.”

If the materials used to create the toy can’t be recycled into new toys, Mattel will either “downcycle” them — a process that involves breaking down the elements or materials and converting them to other uses — or convert them to energy.

Pamela Gill-Alabaster, Mattel’s global head of sustainability, said the program keeps toys out of landfills as part of the company’s commitment to addressing the problem of global waste.

New products introduced last year contribute to Mattel’s sustainability goals, including the Fisher-Price Rock-a-Stack and Fisher-Price Baby’s First Blocks, made from bio-based plastics; three MEGA Bloks sets made from bio-based plastics; and UNO Nothin’ But Paper, the first fully recyclable UNO deck without cellophane packing materials.

The Mattel PlayBack program is available in all U.S. states and Canada, and it is to eventually extend to France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

People can participate by going to Mattel.com/PlayBack and printing out a label.