Answer: There are several different options for getting those old McDonald’s Happy Meal toys off your hands. You can sell, donate, recycle, or just throw them away.

So, after many Happy Meals, you have managed to accumulate a fair number of McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, and now you are wondering what on earth to do with them. If you are reading this, then chances are you have already ruled out just throwing them in the trash—or, at very least, you would like some more practical options to consider. If you do want some more options, please read ahead—I might be able to assist.

1. You Can Sell Your Old McDonald’s Happy Meals Toys:

You are probably thinking this sounds crazy. There is no way anybody would pay for these old things, right? There is no way old McDonald’s toys are valuable or worth anything. Well, you would be surprised by the kinds of things some toy/action figure enthusiasts are willing to pay good money for. Collectors can be relentlessly dedicated to completing their collection of figures related to a particular franchise like Star Wars, Transformers, Pokemon, etc. Some collectors also like to have every version possible of a certain character, and if a small figure of that character is released in McDonald’s Happy Meals, you had better believe they’re going to get their hands on it, whether they get it in a Happy Meal or not.

There have been cases where important figures from a franchise came with Happy Meals, and those figures are considered rare and valuable today. A good example of this is Bionicle (a line of buildable figures from LEGO). In 2001, shortly after Bionicle launched, the six Matoran figures were released in McDonald’s Happy Meals as a means of promoting that line. Now, to most people these are just another Happy Meal toy, but to the die-hard Bionicle fans, these are important characters in the Bionicle story, and a must have for their collection. These small LEGO sets can sell for about $20 to $60 a piece and people have paid over $100 for all of them when sold together.

Now, does this mean that the McDonald’s toys that you have are worth anything? Not necessarily. But it is worth investigating before you decide to get rid of them. A good way to find out if those old McDonald’s toys are worth anything is to use the Sold Items filter on eBay. This will let you see how much people have spent on that item, and how recently that item has been sold. The best place to sell old toys in most cases is eBay, but if you don’t want to go through the hassle of listing and prepping the item for sale, there are small businesses and pawn shops that will buy it off of you, just be aware of the value of the item that you have and don’t let them low ball you! Do a little digging, and you may be surprised to find out how much some of these old McDonald’s toys are worth.

And, last but now least, you could always just sell it in a garage sale. Nothing wrong with that.

Interested in selling your old McDonald’s toys? I have written a post about how to prep and package action figures before selling them. Some of the information might be applicable. Check the post out here.

2. You Can Donate your Old McDonald’s Happy Meal Toys

Let’s say that the Happy Meal Toys that you have are worth very little, or you just don’t want to bother with the hassle of judging the toy’s value and selling it. You just want it off your hands, but you want it to go to good use—you don’t want to just throw it away to add to a landfill somewhere. In this case, another good, and noble option is to donate the old toys.

You have a ton of options when it comes to donating your old toys, and I should really do a post dedicated to those options, but some good starting points would be church charities, thrift stores, local children’s charities, and preschools in your area. You can also go online and look for different donation services that would be willing to pick up, or have your old toys shipped to them. In certain cases, you should be able to claim donations to tax-exempt organizations as deductions on your taxes, even in the case of old toys. So that is another upside to consider!

Really, though, when it comes to donating, you don’t even have to donate it to a particular organization. You can give it to your friends or family for their kids to enjoy.

Just always be sure to clean off and disinfect anything that you donate to children.

3. You Can Recycle Your Old McDonald’s Happy Meal Toys

Recycling plastic toys is possibly an option, but it can be complicated. This is due to the shape of the plastic figure along with the type of plastic used. You can see if the particular item has a recycling code somewhere on it, and look up that recycling code along with your zip code here on Earth911.com to see if there are possibly any recycling companies near you that will accept it.

TerraCycle is another option for recycling old toys. It is a social enterprise that serves to recycle items and objects that do not usually get recycled because they’re thought to be non-recyclable. The way it works is, they ship you a box, you put the items you would like to recycle into the box, you ship it back to them, and then they recycle it. I’ve never used their services myself, and I’ve heard they can pricey, so, maybe wait until you have a number of different items you want to send to them for recycling besides just that old McDonald’s Happy Meal’s figure. Send few other items in that box to make it worth your money.

Conclusion:

If you have old toys of any kind, the best option usually is not to just throw it away. Someone else could possibly get a little bit of joy out of it. Whether you donate it, sell it, or recycle it; it is providing value to someone, if only in a small way.

If you plan on keeping those old toys, you may want to check out my article on storing action figures or this article I wrote on storing action figure parts and accessories. Yes, these posts are focused on action figures, BUT if you plan on storing those old McDonald’s toys for the future, some of the information may be helpful.

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