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Little Toys

By: Arvind Gupta; Illustrations by D. K. Sharma; Published by National Book Trust, India.

Introduction :

It is an irony of modern consumerism that junk products are packed in tough cartons. While the frail human body consumes and digests the junk, it is the environment which has to grapple and reckon with the tough, non-biodegradable waste. And, in the process, humans become sick and the environment decays.

Today we can see city parks littered and garbage dumps overflowing with tetrapacks -- empty cartoons of Frooti, TreeTop, Jumping Jack or Dhara. These packets are made with layers of different materials -- plastic, aluminium and paper -- all fused into one multi-walled laminate. We know that aluminium does not rust and plastics do not rot. These materials are energy-intensive and take a heavy toll of the environment, which helplessly chokes under the debris.

An attempt has been made in the book to show how some of this modern junk can be recycled into joyous toys. Film-roll cases can be transformed into a high-efficiency pump, Frooti tetrapacks into measuring cylinders or butterflies, packets of cigarette into merry-go-rounds. These new raw materials offer innumerable possibilities for use in low-cost science experiments and in making dynamic toys.

For five years children in Mirambika School made and tested these toys. Several of these toys have been serialised in the magazine Science Reporter.

I thank CAPART for the fellowship they gave which enabled me to collate these toys into a book.

Climbing Butterfly [Little Toy 1]

Catch a Butterfly [Little Toy 2]

Strechable Stomach [Little Toy 3]

Standing a Stick [Little Toy 4]

Shell Strength [Little Toy 5]

Tree Name-Plates [ Little Toy 6]