Our infant car seat has been sitting in the garage for more than a few months now. This is partly out of sentimentality. After all, it was purchased before our son was born over 6 years ago, and has protected both of our kids in the ensuing years. Our Graco Snugride 35 is what we brought both our children home from the hospital in. It has been all over the country with us on family trips. I’ve lugged this baby behemoth in and out of the car and schlepped it on my arm (only recently learning I was not using the right way to carry it!) in and out of homes, stores, restaurants, everywhere more times than I can count. It’s been like an unwanted appendage for years. And yet when our youngest finally outgrew it, I became a little sentimental thinking about getting rid of that ole newborn albatross.

Another reason why it’s been hanging around longer than it should is because you can’t safely resell used carseats or even give them away.

Car seats have expiration dates, and as a safety measure they also can’t be used if they’ve ever been involved in an accident. The structure may have been compromised or degraded over time, and you wouldn’t want to be responsible for someone else’s child being injured due to a faulty car seat that you sold or gave them! And since the only way to truly know if a car seat has been in a fender bender is if you pulled it out brand new from the box yourself when you bought it, most resale groups and shops will not sell them.

But the thought of putting our ole reliable baby protector out to pasture (aka rotting in the local landfill) for the next several thousands of years didn’t sit right with me either. And so it stayed in our garage…until now.

Starting now through May 4th, 2019, Target’s car seat trade-in event is happening nationwide.

I’ve never participated in this program before, so did all the research beforehand and am going to share everything I learned with you in this post. Please note: Target is not sponsoring me to write this. I’m just sharing the info I’ve collected with you!

 

Here’s how Target’s car seat trade-in program works:

• Bring your used car seat to almost any Target store in the US (You can click here to check if yours is participating. Most – including all the ones in my area – are, except for some small-format stores.)

 

• Leave it at the car seat drop off box near Guest Services. At my local Target it was right next to the photo pick up area as you walk in. You kinda can’t miss this giant green cardboard box!

 

• Receive a coupon for 20% off (one per seat) that is good in stores and online until May 11th, 2019.

 

• Use that coupon on a new car seat, booster seat, base, entire travel system, or stroller. You can even use it on select baby home gear like play-yards, high chairs, swings, rockers, and bouncers!

TIP: You don’t need to have purchased your used car seat from Target originally. It doesn’t even need to be yours. If you’ve got a friend with an extra used seat they no longer need, they can give it to you to turn in for that handy 20% off coupon.

 

This is a great way for first-time parents to save on a big ticket item right out of the gate!

What happens to your old car seat?

Target will give all the old car seats it collects to Waste Management, the giant garbage and recycling company whose trucks you’ve probably seen all over the country. According to Target’s website, Waste Management will then take care of recycling as much of the content as is possible.

While the details on this part are vague, they also say that they’ve diverted half a million car seats (up from 176,000 in 2018!) from landfills. That translates into roughly 7.4 million pounds of waste (up from 2.6 million in 2018). This is a really mind-boggling statistic if you think about it.

How many millions of pounds of car seat waste were going into landfills before car seat recycling programs like this one got started?

We may not know exactly how much of the car seats are getting recycled. But it’s better than not recycling them at all. I hope that if car seat manufacturers and corporations see consumers make that effort to recycle their car seats, they will start to make them with more recyclable materials.

 

Have an old car seat but no longer need to buy a new one?

Though you might not need that coupon, I’m sure someone out there does. How about spreading some pixie dust to a family that could use it? You could bring your car seat in to get the coupon, and then give it to anyone you see browsing the carseat aisle. Or give the coupon to a neighborhood family. Or bring it to a women’s shelter (along with some gently used clothing and toys).

 

As of right now, there aren’t any fully eco-conscious alternatives to traditional car seats.

I’ve heard about a few companies such as UPPAbaby, Britax, and Nuna that are starting to make their car seats with more eco-friendly materials like non-toxic flame retardants which is a good start. You can read this excellent blog post which has lots of information about research that has been done on toxic flame retardants and how they’re used in car seats.

 

If you missed this event, don’t stress. Target seems to have them about twice a year.

It’s a great door buster event for them as it gets people in their stores to shop. And chances are if you’re in Target, you’re going to buy more stuff than you intended to! I know that always happens to me, try as I might. Babies R Us also used to hold them until they went out of business. Hopefully another big box store will take its place with a similar trade-in offer.

 

I’m going to admit now that I got full-on emotional as I put our old car seat in that giant green box.

This inanimate object had come to represent my children’s early childhood years that are now over, and a chapter in my life that is fully done. It didn’t help that I went straight from dropping it off to picking out a birthday card for my soon-to-be 6 year old. SIX! Where did the time go. And then my husband texted as I was getting back into the car that our daughter who just turned 2 last month had decided on her own to sit and use the potty for the first time.

I seriously lost it in the parking lot. Like, ugly crying in my car. My babies! The tears really starting coming down as I remembered the time my son, at just a couple months old, had his first diaper blow out in that car seat. (Back then, as inexperienced parents, we actually thought about just throwing it out entirely until we realized we could remove and wash the cover. Then, voila, perfectly clean infant car seat once more).

Who cries over spilled baby poop? This mama.

So I let myself have a little tearful moment. Then I pulled myself together, and took a line from that song in FROZEN. You know, the one which my daughter has made us listen to anywhere from 10-47 times per day, every day, for the past three months:

“Let it go. Let it go! Just let that newborn car seat gooooooooooooooo!”

 

And so I did. Have you ever done Target’s car seat trade-in? Post a pic and tag me on social media – I’d love to see your kid’s new ride! 

 

• car-seat
• coupon
• FROZEN
• Target