REPLAY - Recolha e Reciclagem Criativa de Brinquedos

REPLAY - Recolha e Reciclagem Criativa de Brinquedos is a pioneering Portuguese initiative created by Zero Waste Lab and Precious Plastic Portugal, with the patronage of Novo Banco, dedicated to giving a second life to toys that would otherwise be discarded. Most toys are manufactured from many different materials, making them difficult to recycle, and at least 30 million toys end up in landfill or are incinerated in Portugal every year due to the absence of a dedicated recycling solution. Through 2021, the project piloted the country's first national circuit for collecting, sorting and recycling end-of-life toys, mobilising citizens, schools and businesses alongside the Precious Plastic Portugal network of recycling labs. What began in the municipalities of Évora, Lisbon, Cascais, Porto and Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo grew to include six further locations, resulting in 44 collection points across 11 cities and more than 120 partners spanning society, from municipalities and universities to schools and recycling companies. REPLAY's objectives include raising awareness of recycling failures and waste production, promoting the circularity of plastic and other toy materials, developing sustainable technological solutions for creative plastic transformation, stimulating public debate on toy quality and marketing to children, and eventually implementing an Extended Producer Responsibility system for toys in Portugal that also creates sustainable jobs. The project has dismantled thousands of toys, separated tens of thousands of kilograms of materials such as plastic, metal, rubber, wood, cardboard and batteries, created dozens of new toys, and donated over a thousand toys to new homes. Winner of the New European Bauhaus Prize 2022 and featured in the NEB Encyclopedia, REPLAY has also been referenced in Portuguese academic research on circular economy and social responsibility, and linked to Lisbon's European Green Capital designation.