Sustainability in practice: How Loved Before is stopping soft toys going to landfill

About 80% of stuffed animals and other toys worldwide are eventually thrown away. And, according to a 2022 study, they make up 6% of plastic in landfill globally.

This is because soft toys have all of the same waste problems as a lot of modern clothing. Synthetic materials like polyester are the main component in the majority of cuddly toys, which is hard to recycle and takes hundreds of years to break down in landfill.

And just like fashion, resale is a more sustainable alternative - as success story Loved Before is proving.

Loved for longer

Loved Before was created specifically to keep cuddly toys out of landfill and in circulation for longer.

Founded by Charlotte Liebling in 2019, Loved Before was born out of Liebling’s time volunteering at a charity shop. She saw large numbers of stuffed toys being donated but many ended up being thrown away rather than sold.

Loved Before offers a different path. It is a ‘sustainable soft toy adoption agency’, taking in unwanted plushies, deep cleaning and refreshing them, and then re-selling them via its website.

Last year, Liebling reported that Loved Before had collected more than 60,000 cuddly toys that may otherwise have been thrown away.

The toys are donated directly by consumers, who send them to Loved Before’s offices, and through a number of London charity shops. 

According to Liebling, a massive 95% of donated soft toys can be refreshed and rehomed - even if they are old or worn. The small percentage that can’t be sold are recycled.

Emotionally-driven purchases

Cuddly toys aren’t necessary purchases. Buying one isn’t driven by logic; it’s an emotional purchase. We buy them for comfort, for joy, for play.

The success of the Toy Story films perfectly demonstrates the complex emotions that are tied up in toys. They may be inanimate and yet we anthropomorphise them; we give them feelings and emotions. 

Loved Before taps into all of this brilliantly.

Every cuddly toy that the company refreshes and puts on sale is given a name and comes with a little bio about their personality. This changes them from objects into something that potential buyers can connect with on an emotional level.

Donors are asked to write these bios, which increases the power of them. If the donor doesn’t provide a background, Loved Before gives the soft toy to someone to look after for a couple of weeks who then writes a background for them.

Those same emotions are at play when it comes to donations. Multiple people who have sent in their old cuddly toys to Loved Before have expressed their happiness at having a way to extend their soft toys’ lives - so to speak. 

Many have noted that they had been holding onto old toys because they didn’t want them to end up in the bin. This is especially true in the case of older or well-loved toys which may not be accepted through existing resale options, such as charity shops. 

Loved Before is able to successfully refresh and sell soft toys with history by embracing that history.

Buying a pre-loved toy from Loved Before isn’t about getting something pristine. Each toy is given a condition rating - based on the amount of wear it has - and any warnings regarding CE or UKCA labelling.

‘Imperfections’ are retained - although every toy is safe, sanitised and clean - because they show the toy’s previous life. The brand believes that the toys have more value because of the memories already attached to them.

In many ways, Loved Before evokes a lot of the same feelings that consumers have around animals and their pets. The model is as much about how the cuddly toys enhance the customers’ lives as about the product itself.

Given that, generally speaking, Loved Before cuddly toys cost £10 to £30, this emotional component is vital in getting customers to consider secondhand over similarly - or cheaper - priced new products.

Success through established strategies

Loved Before’s success is also down to its use of well-established retail strategies.

It adds new toys to its website in ‘drops’ every Monday, rather than as they come in. This creates a sense of occasion and anticipation for consumers. It also helps to make the brand more visible by making product additions into an event.

Loved Before also uses social media effectively to highlight its cuddly toys. This includes personality-driven posts showcasing the newest additions to the website, images of toys taking part in everyday tasks like cooking, or toys getting refreshed in the ‘spa’.

At every possible moment, Loved Before centres the toys themselves, building the relationship between viewers and the plushies. The brand has 167,000 followers on Instagram and 176,000 on TikTok with hundreds of positive comments.

Community is another key element. Much like a pet adoption agency, Loved Before leaves the profiles of ‘adopted’ soft toys on its website, so that their former owners can see what happened to them. It also hosts a forum on its website where adopters can post pictures and updates about their pre-owned purchase. 

Again, this taps into those vital emotional elements that drive consumers to want to keep these toys out of landfill.

Last year, Loved Before’s pre-loved soft toys made their way into physical retail with dedicated stands in Selfridges’ London flagship, Birmingham and Manchester stores. The company’s secondhand toys are also sold in a number of independent retailers.

Loved Before has also recently launched in the US after massive consumer demand, starting with an online partnership with Bloomingdale’s.

Putting a secondhand option alongside brand new soft toys is a major step forward in changing consumer thinking and getting shoppers to consider buying pre-loved - not as supplementary to buying new but instead of.

A presence in a major retailer like Selfridges helps to legitimise the concept and raise awareness.

The right elements

It only takes a quick glance at the comments on Loved Before’s social media posts to understand that soft toys have incredible emotional power over people. So many consumers engage with the company’s posts to express sadness for the toys looking for new homes and their love for their own soft toys - current and past.

This point of connection is a vital component in making Loved Before’s resale model work – in making the toys feel valuable and desirable.

But there is another thing that the soft toy industry may have going for it when it comes to resale that fashion increasingly doesn’t. And that’s durability. 

Safety standards, such as the CE or UKCA mark, require toys to have strength and stability. Those traits are the same ones that arguably mean that soft toys are excellent candidates for the circular economy as they can withstand many years of adventures.

And that’s exactly what Loved Before is aiming for.