Popular kids toy brand Mini Brands under fire on social media for its plastic use

Popular kids toy brand Mini Brands has made changes to become more sustainable after coming under fire on social media for using too much plastic.

Surprise Mini Brands are miniature replica collectables of products such as food, Disney characters and fashion items. Shoppers don’t know which collectable they have bought until they open it.

The plastic mini toys come in a plastic sphere which is wrapped in plastic packaging to keep the ball shut.

The brand is owned by New Zealand toy company Zuru, and since launching in 2019, Mini Brands has become increasingly popular with both children and adults.

In March, more than 17 million products had been shipped globally.

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But the brand, which has a strong social media presence, particularly on its New Zealand-based TikTok page, which has 1.5 million followers and 31.5 million likes on its videos, has increasingly come under fire on the video-sharing platform for its plastic usage.

“Absolutely lovely for the environment,” one TikTok user commented on one of its videos.

“I just love lots of packaging with non-biodegradable materials,” another said sarcastically with a smiley face emoji with hearts on it.

Another user called for the brand to use compostable materials.

Henry Gordon, global marketing director at Zuru, said steps had been taken to make the product more sustainable since it launched.

When it first launched the minis and surprises were packed in polybags made of plastic to protect them during transit.

“After the first year we moved away from this to reduce thousands of tonnes of plastic from the equation,” he said.

At first, the 5 Surprise shrink wrap was made from PVC, which is not an easily kerbside recyclable material. Zuru then switched to a more easily recyclable material such as PET.

“We then moved to post-consumer recycled plastic drastically reducing our virgin plastic input.”

In addition to this, it had moved from having packaging that split into five segments, to just two segments instead, which reduced 40% of the plastic used.

Mini Brands and Mini Brands Foodies, which both launched in August, had capsules made from certified recycled plastic.

“For those capsules as well, we are packing the componentry in recyclable paper bags,” Gordon said.

“The products themselves are made from a mixture of raw materials including but not limited to ABS, PVC, HIPS and paper – which is pretty standard for all consumer good including the rest of toys.”

Gordon said social listening and engaging with the “Miniac community” was important.

“A lot of this comes from direct feedback from our community on Instagram and TikTok,” he said.

Victor Marques de Oliveira Gambarini, PhD candidate at Auckland University said changing PVC for PET might help with recycling, but if both plastics ended up in the environment, they would take decades or centuries to disappear because they were both not biodegradable.

“Adding recycled plastics helps, as most plastics are made from fossil fuels, so it reduces the use of these fossil fuels. However, it will not change anything about its biodegradability in the environment,” he said.