Based in Finistère, the Ti Toys integration project recovered eight tonnes of used toys last year.

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Ti Toys

  • In Finistère, the Ti Toys structure recycles and recycles used toys while giving employment to people in precarious situations.

  • This weekend, it received thousands of toys transported by a special train as part of a major collection operation.

  • The restored toys are then resold at low prices in a shop.

It is a very special train which disembarked on Saturday afternoon at Brest station.

Having left Rennes a few hours earlier, he crisscrossed Brittany with thousands of toys collected from several stations on board.

Set up by the SNCF, this large solidarity fundraiser was organized for the benefit of Ti Toys, a unique structure in Brittany which recycles and recycles used games and toys.

It is in “his Father Christmas workshop”, based in La Roche-Maurice near Landerneau (Finistère), that the cargo will be received and weighed at the start of the week.

Supported by the Don Bosco association, which has been working in the field of social and medico-social action since 1945, this integration project saw the light of day in 2019. It was born from an overwhelming observation drawn up by the Agency of the ecological transition (Ademe) which revealed that 1.27 toys were thrown away every second in France.

“So that's more than 40 million toys that end up in the trash every year,” says Marjorie Grégoire.

Knowing that plastic toys are not recyclable, the amount of waste produced is therefore considerable.

Twelve people in great precariousness employed in CDD

In her entourage, the coordinator of the structure also observed that mountains of toys were sleeping in the cupboards, abandoned by children who often tire quickly.

“At the same time, early childhood professionals alerted me to the fact that they had no budget to equip or renew their stock of toys,” she says.

Inspired by the model of resource centers and recycling centers that are growing all over the region, Marjorie Grégoire has therefore given life to Ti Toys.

The structure collects toys from individuals, companies or traders.

And the harvest is good with "eight tons of toys collected last year", welcomes its co-founder.

Twelve people, mostly women, employed in CDD integration then take turns in the workshop to sort, clean and reassemble the toys.

"We have a whole stock of spare parts and so we add them when there is a lack of toys," she explains.

Broken toys, however, are not repaired on site, the process requiring too many constraints to meet European safety standards.

"Like new" toys sold at low prices

The structure still manages to revalue 80% of the toys it receives and put them back on the circuit "like new".

They are then sold at low prices in a shop adjoining the workshop or during private sales organized for companies or communities.

"Children do not even see the difference when we present them a new toy or a toy that has been reconditioned at home," says Marjorie Grégoire.

The rest of the toys collected are partly recycled (around 12%) while a small quantity ends up at the recycling center.

Well established in Finistère and more recently in Morbihan and Côtes-d'Armor, Ti Toys is now seeking to establish itself in Ille-et-Vilaine to further expand its mountain of toys and give them a second life.

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