The issue with car seats not being reusable after a certain number of years actually makes sense. Plastic isn’t permanent. It degrades over time. It may look perfectly solid, but not hold up the same way as a new seat in an actual accident. And, yes, there is probably a longer lifetime built into the car seat than what is defined as its “useful life” because that’s how engineering and regulations work. But this isn’t just something made up by the carseat industry to sell more product. Given the choice between a friend’s 10 year old car seat and buying a new one, we bought a new one. (Although we are using the old one as part of a cheap stroller set up, because the impact forces/plastic degradation issues there are unlikely to matter.) Also: Check your insurance … a lot of car insurance companies won’t cover accident claims if you were using an expired carseat. That’s a damn good reason to not recycle those.
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