Every so often, I like to write about what to do with your unwanted clutter, especially the hard-to-recycle stuff. My husband, who works at a Fix Auto Body Shop, is the one who tipped me off to this unique Portland-Metro area program for disposing old car seats.
Did you know you need to dispose of any car seat five years or older? This is because the plastic in the car seat starts to break down when it is subjected to years of extreme hot and cold in your car. Once the breakdown begins, the safety of the car seat is compromised. Because of this, many children’s resale and consignment shops will not accept old car seats for sale.
So what do you do with them? Portland-Metro residents can take them to any Fix Auto Body shop, where they will be sent off to be ground down into plastic chunks (this is the same place where damaged car bumpers are recycled). From there the plastic chunks are used by manufacturers to build new plastic products.
The program, run in conjunction with Legacy Emanuel Hospital, accepts any car seats, infant to booster-sized. You just need to remove the fabric cover and drop the car seat off at the auto body shop. You do not have to be a client of the shop to use this service, which is free.
Keep old car seats out of use, out of your house and out of landfills. Spread the word to your parent friends about this fantastic program!
This post came at the perfect time. Our infant car seats are taking up space and since I can't donate or sell them (and nobody would claim them at the end of the driveway 🙂 they've just sat in our basement. Thank you so much Mary Jo. I'm dropping them off this week!
Thank you for this post! It is great to see that other people feel as strongly as we do about recycling used and damaged car safety seats. We just posted a link to your blog on our Facebook page.
Thanks again for your support!!
– The Fix Auto Team
Facebook Page: Fix Auto Northwest
Twitter: FixAutoNw