Toy Story: The second life of Cork's unwanted teddy bears
Tripe + Drisheen paid a visit to Tramore Valley Park where hundreds of discarded teddy bears and toys are on display at the recycling centre.
Finbarr Sheehan has seen just about every teddy bear under the sun. Thousands of them in fact. From Mickey and Minnie Mouse to giant gorillas, Garfield, Minions, Baby Shark, Paddington, Winnie-the-Pooh, half the cast of Toy Story and Finding Nemo, all of Paw Patrol and enough My Little Ponies to run a derby. It’s not just teddies; Finbarr’s also come across Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and a galaxy of superheroes too.
Finbarr doesn’t work at Smyth’s Toys (although his work place isn’t far at all from the toy store’s outpost just off Kinsale Road Roundabout). Rather, he works at the recycling centre which occupies a corner of the 160-acre Tramore Valley Park. It’s here where he handles the vast hordes of cuddly bears, toy cars and miniature superheroes which no longer spark joy, to use the phrase popularised by Japanese cleaning guru KonMari.
One Friday morning a few weeks before Christmas together with photographer Mark O’Shea, Tripe + Drisheen paid a visit to Finbarr and the great army of teddy bears that line the fence along a route called Cuddly Toy Heaven Walk at Tramore Valley Park. Finbarr and his colleagues hung the first teddy bear up in 2014.
Originally from Loretto Park in Turner’s Cross and now living in Inchigeelagh, Finbarr has been working at Tramore Valley Park since the mid-nineties, long before the landfill site was re-christened and sanitised. Finbarr can recall the mountains of refuse piled up daily where the Christmas tree now stands at the apex of the park.
It’s all changed since the “city dump”, as it was known locally, was covered over in layers of top soil and plastic sheeting (methane gas from the covered over dump site burns round the clock). The park is about to be changed again with the addition of a pedestrian and cycle bridge over the N40 connecting the park to Grange and Frankfield on the Southside of the city.
One thing that hasn’t changed though is our habit of throwing things out.
But, it’s here at Tramore Valley Park that a small percentage of Cork’s teddy bears and toys get a second life. Mostly, what they do is just hang around. And, in their own way they spark joy.
The idea to do something with the teddy bears started eight years ago.
“At the time you couldn't recycle them anymore. We started to see loads and loads of bags of toys all the time, so we said we’d hang them up over here for the laugh,” Finbarr tells us showing us where the teddies were first displayed.
And so Finbarr and his colleagues put a few teddy bears up on a height barrier inside the fence. They covered the first barrier in no time; that display of teddy bears did not go unnoticed.
“When the kids saw all this, they thought, ‘Oh, we can bring our toys down to the dump,’” said Finbarr. And that’s how it came to be that an army of teddies now lines the perimeter fence of the recycling centre. A sign was erected a few years later by the City Council at the top of the fence that reads Cuddly Toy Heaven Walk. Naturally, there’s a teddy hanging on that too.
According to Finbarr, Tramore Valley Park is the only recycling centre in Ireland that operates a scheme such as this one.
“We’re unique kid,” Finbarr says, gesturing to the sign at the top of the path. That they are. To an adult and child the exhibition of toys and teddy bears looks quite different. Kids go by trying to pick out the characters they recognise from books, movies and cartoons, or even ones they have at home. But, there’s also a certain eeriness to the rows and rows of teddies and toys strapped to the fence, hanging on before the inevitable catches up with them. You also can’t help but consider the amount of stuff we consume and which we eventually (or quite quickly) throw away.
“The amount of stuff that comes in is frightening,” Finbarr says, but in the next breath he says it’s normal, or it’s become normal to him. Bar nuclear weapons, there’s probably nothing that he and the council staff at Tramore Valley Park haven't seen dumped.
The staff at the recycling centre have a shipping container on the go all the time in which they place toys that are being dumped or which are handed in. Some of those toys will be collected by charity groups who’ll send them overseas, and some of the teddies will in time end up on the fence for their second life.
“Kids actually bring them in for us to hang them up and they come round with their parents and they say, ‘look at my toy, look at my toy up on the fence’”.
Every summer the staff at the recycling centre also hold a teddy bear’s picnic. It started off with two big massive teddies, Finbarr says.
“I put a table around them and put out a few cups and saucers and then Jesus Christ more big massive teddies came in so we said, ‘feck it we’ll put them all on the grass here, it was like a big family gathering,’” Finbarr said pointing to the spot where the picnic takes place every summer.
For most of our interview and guided tour of the recycling centre, Finbarr carries Miley around with him. Miley’s a giant teddy gorilla, likely weighing in close to around 10kg. His twin is strapped to the fence.
After a few years hanging on the fence and through countless days of sun and non-stop rain the teddies loose their vigour. When they truly look worn out after hanging on for so long, Finbarr or one of his colleagues will take them down and deposit the teddy in a bin. One of the contracting companies that come in throughout the day will take the teddy off to be either recycled or more likely to be packed up and shipped overseas from the Port of Cork.
According to the most recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report, 40% of Ireland’s municipal waste is exported while 50% of all packaging waste and nearly all electrical waste is sent abroad.
That EPA report shows that as a nation we are producing more and more waste. In 2020, for the fourth year in a row packaging waste exceeded 1 million tonnes. Municipal waste was up from 3.1 million tonnes in 2019 to 3.2 million tonnes in 2020, and according to an OECD study, Ireland has a circular material use rate of 1.8%, relative to an EU average of 12.8%.
Finbarr says there’ll be a huge increase in the amount of wrapping and plastic that comes into the recycling centre in the New Year as households get rid of the Christmas excess. And no doubt there’ll be a few teddy bears and toys, some old and some new in the mix.
Before we leave one of Finbarr’s colleagues tells us the backstory about a giant teddy who ended up on the fence across from us. The teddy was a gift from the woman’s fiancé, but when her relationship broke up she brought the giant cuddly gift to the Cuddly Toy Heaven Walk where it started its second life.
Every teddy has a story to be told.
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