Sustainability
The dolls that outlast the childhood
We have been making dolls for a long time and the same thing keeps happening.
A doll becomes a child's best friend. It goes everywhere with them and then, inevitably, a toy is set aside. It is never ever forgotten though.
Years later that child is a parent who comes looking for the doll they loved. Sometimes they find us by searching. More often they send us an email with a photograph and ask whether we know which one it was.
After over 30 years we have compiled a large catalog of dolls new and old, some of which have not been in the market for decades, others that have never been out of circulation. We keep records of all our dolls. That is what helps us track down a collector's favorite from the 80s, 90s and 2000s.
We keep our discontinued dolls as samples in all three of our offices so that we can look at a sculpt again long after it left the catalog. Those are the rooms we go and search.
There are dolls of ours now in their second and third generation in the same family. That means a great deal to us.
We run our own factories, which is what makes the rest of this possible
Our dolls are designed in Castalla, Spain and manufactured in our own factories in Spain and China. We source the raw materials, we run the lines and we are involved in every step of production.
That matters here, because everything else on this page follows from it. When we want to put solar panels on a roof, change how a machine runs or work out what happens to the offcuts, there is nobody to persuade. We decide and it happens.
The factory is an evolution. New technology replaces old machinery. Coupled with solar, that is how the footprint comes down.
Solar on the roofs and heat that gets used twice
The biggest change at our largest factory has been generating our own power rather than buying all of it.
Around 30 percent of the electricity the factory uses is now generated on site, by solar panels across our roofs. As we continue to expand our production footprint new panels will help us reach up to 42 percent.
Heat coming off the compressors, together with a solar pipe, feeds the hot water system. That saves approximately 44,000 kilowatt hours a year.
The water used for the waste air filter runs in circulation rather than being drawn fresh and discharged.
Almost none of it leaves the building
Making a doll produces offcuts. What happens to them next is the part worth talking about.
At our largest factory, over 95 percent of the waste polypropylene is reused internally rather than going out as waste. Product is molded with ten percent regrind mixed back in.
There is one piece of this we are quietly pleased with. Fitted inside the arms, legs and neck of our dolls is a small valve cap that keeps water out of the body. Those caps are injection molded from vinyl scrap. You will never see one. That is rather the idea.
What the box is made of, part by part
Most of our packaging can be recycled. Here is which parts.
The carton is recyclable and it contains recycled content. The window film is PET, which is recyclable. Paper ties and PU ties are recyclable. Metal wire ties are not.
Retail boxes for the France and Spain markets carry the waste sorting and recycling symbols for those markets.
We buy board from a lot of different suppliers, so we cannot tell you exactly how much recycled content is in it. We are not going to make a number up. We do not hold FSC certification on our packaging either. If either of those changes, this page changes with it.
The target we have set ourselves
We have set a target for our largest factory of halving Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions against a 2024 base year, by 2029.
Behind that number is the solar already on our roofs and the new panels going up as we expand. That is how a factory actually changes over five years.
We set that target ourselves in 2024. Nobody outside the company has audited it. That seemed worth saying. If that changes we will tell you here.
Questions and answers
What happens to the plastic left over when a JC Toys doll is made?
At our largest factory, over 95 percent of waste polypropylene is reused internally rather than leaving the site. Product is molded with ten percent regrind mixed back in. Vinyl scrap is injection molded into the small valve caps fitted inside the arms, legs and neck of our dolls.
Which parts of JC Toys packaging can be recycled?
The carton is recyclable. The window film is PET and is recyclable. Paper ties and PU ties are recyclable. Metal wire ties are not recyclable.
How much recycled content is in a JC Toys carton?
The cartons contain recycled content. We buy board from a lot of different suppliers so we cannot tell you exactly how much. We are not going to make a number up.
What are the caps inside a JC Toys doll made from?
Vinyl scrap from our own production, injection molded on site. The caps sit inside the arms, legs and neck and keep water out of the body. They are an internal component and are not visible.
Where this goes next
None of this is finished. The panels are not all on yet and there is more we want to do.
What we can tell you is what is running today. We will keep this page honest as that changes. If you are looking for what our dolls are tested for, that is on our Product Safety page.