FAQs

Only schools sign up to take part on the Recycle to Read Toys schools campaign site and everybody else can register toy rehoming or toy recycling to get Planet Care Points for schools.

No. You can just register rehoming or recycling toys to collect Planet Care Points. Your chosen school will need to have signed up to take part for you to be able to select them to get the points you earn.

No. Anybody can collect Planet Care Points for schools by rehoming and recycling toys.

You can get Planet Care Points for rehoming or recycling toys and registering these actions with us.

Getting points for rehoming toys

If you have rehomed a toy(s), take a photo of your rehomed toy(s) in their new home/ place, complete our toy rehoming registration form by filling in your email address (adult addresses/ over 18 year olds only), selecting the school you would like to give your Planet Care Point to, adding the number of toys rehomed and uploading the photo of the toys in their new homes/places and submit the form. Once your registration is verified, your Planet Care Point will be given to your selected school, which will appear on the School Leaderboard. If you have fully verified your toy rehoming and remembered to upload a photo you will also be entered into our prize draws*. *Terms and conditions apply.

Getting points for recycling toys

When you take your toys to a Tesco store to drop into one of our collection bins, scan the QR code which will open a simple form for you to complete to register your toy recycling. The form will ask you for your email address, Tesco store used, number of toys you put in the bin (roughly). It will also ask you to select which school should get your Planet Care Point. Once you have submitted the form and your registration is verified, your Planet Care Point will be added to your selected school’s total and appear on our School Leaderboard. You will then be entered into our prize draws*. *Terms and conditions apply.

Yes. You can register your recycling by going to the Get Points page and selecting ‘Toy Recycling’ to register your toy recycling.

You can earn a maximum of one Planet Care Point for rehoming toys or recycling toys, per day. So, you can earn an overall maximum of two Planet Care Points per day (one for rehoming and one for recycling).

We don’t award points per toy. It is a maximum of one Planet Care Point for rehoming toys and a maximum of one Planet Care Point for recycling toys, regardless of the number of toys that have been rehomed or recycled each day.

You can’t earn Planet Care Points for a school that isn’t signed up. Only schools that are signed up to Recycle to Read Toys will be available to be selected in the drop-down menu (in the toy rehoming and toy recycling registration forms in the Get Points page). If your school isn’t in the list, why not ask them to sign up (if they are in the trial area – East and West Sussex).

Yes, you must submit an email address to get Planet Care Points for a school and it must be an email address that belongs to somebody over the age of 18. We will use this email address for the prize draws and to send book discount codes. We never share email addresses with third parties. For full details about how we use your data, please see our Data Protection Policy.

Yes. Everybody that earns Planet Care Points must choose a school to give them to.

No. Everybody that earns Planet Care Points must give them to a school (only schools can collect points).

No, the leaderboard is only for schools.

Schools can sign up to take part on the Recycle to Read Toys campaign page on Wastebusters free campaign platform, The Pod. Please note that only schools (with pupils aged 2-11 years) in East and West Sussex can take part in the trial. If your school is not in this area, you can still sign up to be notified when the programme is available in their area.

You can go to the Get Points page and complete the toy recycling form.

You can help your school get books by helping them collect Planet Care Points.

You can earn Planet Care Points by:

1) Finding a new home for any unwanted toys.
2) Recycling any small broken plastic toys in a Recycle to Read Toy Collection bin in a participating Tesco store.
3) Registering your rehoming and recycling with us and selecting which school you are collecting points for.

Please note that only registered schools in East and West Sussex, can currently collect Recycle to Read Planet Care Points for toy recycling.

Planet Care Points aren’t a virtual currency. We reward the top 50 point collecting schools with books vouchers from £50-500 depending on their ranking at midday 4th December 2024.

They will be in the drop-down list when you register toy rehoming or toy recycling. If they are registered and have collected any Planet Care Points, they will be listed in the School Leaderboard.

They can both earn points for their schools. A maximum of one Planet Care Point for rehoming and one Planet Care Point for recycling can be claimed per day, so you will have to register each child’s activity on different days.

They can both earn points for their school. A maximum of one Planet Care Point for rehoming and one Planet Care Point for recycling can be claimed per day, so you will have to register each child’s activity on different days.

No, not yet. Recycle to Read Toys is currently only for schools with pupils aged between 2-11 years.

No, sorry. We can only accept broken, hard plastic toys. If the toys were part of a game, that is fine if they are made of just hard plastic. Games and puzzles are popular items and so could be ideal to rehome rather than recycle.

You can find your nearest participating Tesco store using our handy store location map. Please note, during the trial, only selected large stores in East and West Sussex will be participating.

The bins will be located behind the tills in participating stores.

Do not leave toys by the bin if it is full, this is very important for safety reasons. If the bin is full, please take your toys to a different store, or bring them back a different day. Our recycling bins will be emptied on a regular basis (a minimum of once every 7 days). Any collection bin issues are dealt with directly by our team rather than by Tesco staff. So, if you encounter any problems with recycling your broken plastic toys, please contact us at info@recycletoread.org.

Yes, you can rehome and recycle as many toys as you like.

You can rehome any toy that you no longer play with as long as it is in a clean, safe and usable condition. There is however a restriction on the type of toys that can be recycled in our collection bins (see the list of the type of toy we can and can’t take in the FAQs below).

We accept small, broken hard plastic toys. For example, buckets and spades.
As a guide, we recommend bringing toys that are small enough to fit in a shoebox. We can take broken hard plastic toys that have small screws and pins and dolls with small amounts of hair too.

We don’t accept
– toys with batteries or any electronic or electrical components 
– toys with fabric parts
– plushie/ soft toys
– wooden toys
– board games (although we can take small hard plastic parts)
– slime or rubber toys
– toy packaging
– sit on toys with wheels
– inflatables
– any toys that won’t fit in our collection bins

Toys are very difficult to recycle as they are often made of a range of different materials. Our recycling partners can recycle hard plastic toys into plastic pellets that can be used to make a wide variety of great new items, from playground slides to coffee machines. We only want broken toys as we believe working toys should be rehomed, which gives more children a chance to enjoy them and extending the life of an item through reuse is good for resource management and the environment.

The broken hard plastic toys will be recycled into plastic pellet that can be used to make a wide range of products ranging from playground slides and garden furniture to watering cans, coffee machines and even, new toys! Watch the video on Busta’s Message page to see exactly how we recycle toys.

Watch the video on Busta’s Message page to see exactly how we recycle toys.

Yes. The entire toy recycling operation (turning toys into plastic pellet that can be used to make new products) is in the UK.

This depends on the toy you have. It is worth searching online for fixes for specific problems. Some communities also have doll hospitals and local shops that can help with a range of different fixes. Try your local Repair Café – the Repair Café website might help you find your nearest repair café. There are lots of guides on the internet on how to fix different types of toys, such as the Fixit Club. Some manufacturers can supply spare parts for toys and games and replacement consumable items supplies for toys too.

For the Recycle to Read Toys trial (Sept 4th– Dec 4th 2023) we have a book reward prize fund of £5,000 to give away as Recycle to Read book vouchers that can be redeemed for books from the Harper Collins Recycle to Read book catalogue. The catalogue contains a fantastic range of fiction and non-fiction books for 2-11 year olds. The books in this catalogue are discounted by 20% and for the trial period, Harper Collins have agreed to boost this discount by a further 20%, which is unlocked with the discount code we provide to schools and individuals who take part. We will award book vouchers ranging from £50 to £500, to the top 50 participating schools in East and West Sussex, during the trial.* Schools will be ranked by the number of Planet Care Points they have collected by the end of the trial, closing midday 4th December 2023. The higher the ranking, the greater the value of the books vouchers the school will be given. See below the ranking and book voucher values. *Terms and conditions apply

Check out the School Leaderboard to see where your school is currently placed.

Rank 1. £500

Rank 2. £400
Rank 3. £300
Rank 4. £200
Rank 5. £100
Rank 6. £100
Rank 7. £100
Rank 8. £100
Rank 9. £100
Rank 10. £100
Ranks 11-50. £50

Totalling £4,000

We have £1,000 in book vouchers, plus exciting book bundles that will be given away through prize draws, to participating schools and families that have earned Planet Care Points.

Planet Care Point registrations will close on midday (12:00 GMT) Monday 4th December.

You can check the ranking of your school from midday (12:00 GMT) Monday 4th December to find out how much your school has earned in book vouchers.

If your school is eligible to receive book vouchers (ranked in the top 50 collecting schools), an email confirmation, attaching the book voucher code, will be sent to the designated contact email for your school by 15 December 2023.

Everybody that earns at least one Planet Care Point will receive a discount code to use to buy books from the Harper Collins Recycle to Read book catalogue. The books in this catalogue are reduced by 20% and for the trial period only (4th Sept-4th Dec 2023) Harper Collins have agreed to boost this discount by a further 20% discount when the discount code is used.

There is also a prize fund of £1,000 of book vouchers plus exciting book bundles that will be given away through prize draws, to participating schools and families that have earned at least one Planet Care Point for toy recycling or for toy rehoming (if they have also uploaded a photo of their rehomed toys), during the trial period (4th Sept-4th Dec 2023).

You will receive an email containing the code, after you have earned a Planet Care Point for a school.

You can redeem the discount code at checkout when you purchase books from the Harper Collins Recycle to Read book catalogue.

12 months from the date of issue.

If the trial is a success, we hope to be able to roll out Recycle to Read Toys as a national programme.

We will be giving away 12 sets of books, with 3x books per book bundle, including popular Peppa Pig and Power Ranger titles to individuals (Planet Care Point collectors) and schools. Plus, 5x £50 book vouchers to individuals and 5x £100 book vouchers to schools to spend on a fantastic range of books in the Harper Collins Recycle to Read book catalogue.

There will be a weekly prize draw*, offering a range of prizes for schools and individuals, throughout the trial, from Tuesday 12th September 2023 until the 5th December 2023 (5th December being the last draw). *Terms and conditions apply.

Any collection bin issues are dealt with directly by our team rather than by Tesco staff. So, if you have any problems, please contact us at info@recycletoread.org.

If you have an issue using this website, please contact us at: info@recycletoread.org.

We transport the toys to be hand sorted to remove any contamination (items that we do not accept in our collections). We then send all the broken, hard plastic toys to our recycling processors, to be made into plastic pellets that can be used to make lots of different things. For more information about how we recycle toys, please see our Technical FAQs in the Press page.

Recycle to Read is a not-for-profit member association. All the important work we do with schools and young people to promote care for the environment, is a result of the in-kind and financial support we receive from our members and sponsors. Please see further details on the Recycle to Read corporate website. Alternatively, please email: info@wastebuster.co.uk.

If you are a business that would like to donate books to the programme, please contact our corporate team by emailing: info@wastebuster.co.uk.

If you would like to give feedback, thoughts, or suggestions please contact the Recycle to Read team at info@recycletoread.org.