Worthing Big Toy Swap

The Worthing Big Toy Swap is coming to Audio Active on Friday 27 November, from 2:00 to 4:30 in the afternoon. It's a community toy swap run by CREW (the Climate Resilience Centre Worthing) and Honey House, and the idea is straightforward: you bring in the toys your kids have outgrown and swap them for something new to them. It's aimed at toys for children aged 0 to 10, so it works for everything from baby rattles to bigger kids' games.

It's part of a wider nationwide campaign called The Big Toy Swap, started by Party Pact CIC and its founder Charlotte Mason-Curl. The whole thing is about making Christmas gifting a bit more affordable and a lot less wasteful by keeping good toys in circulation rather than buying new ones every year. The numbers behind it are a bit of a wake-up call: around £900 million is spent on toys in the UK at Christmas, and nearly a third of British parents have thrown away toys that were still in good working order. Tanwen Morgan, a trustee of CREW and one of the event's organisers, points to research from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation showing that more than 80% of toys end up in landfill, the incinerator or the ocean. Swapping instead of buying new keeps them out of the bin and in a home where they'll actually be played with.

It's a simple way to sort out some of the Christmas shopping without spending a fortune or adding to the waste. If you've got a pile of toys that your kids no longer touch, you can bring them along and trade them for something they'll love. It's free to take part, though you do need to sign up in advance. You'll find it at Audio Active, 85-87 Montague St, Worthing BN11 3BN, on Friday 27 November from 14:00 to 16:30.