(Cam Lee/northeastNOW Staff)

By Cam Lee

Car seat conundrum

Car seat do’s and don’ts

Jan 6, 2020 | 4:32 PM

Reusing and recycling are usually excellent ideas for most products we use on a daily basis.

But that’s not the case for car seats.

Melfort Ambulance manager Wayne Therres said child safety seats are not made to be recycled.

Therres told northeastNOW the seats should be destroyed when the seat reaches the manufacturer’s recommended replacement date.

“All of the seats will either have stamped on the back… or written on the seat somewhere an expiry date that is anywhere from five to seven years past the manufacturing date,” he said.

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The ultraviolet rays from the sun and the reaction on the plastic of the seat could affect how the seats perform in the event of a collision, and Therres said that’s a reason for seats to be destroyed when they reach that five or seven year date from when it was manufactured.

“If they want, they can bring them here to [Melfort Ambulance] and we’ll destroy them so they’re safely destroyed,” he said. “We ask people not to just take them and throw them into their garbage bin or recycling bin and send them that way around the path. They need to be destroyed before they get into that type of picture so someone else doesn’t use them.”

The trouble with second-hand seats

Selling used car seats in garage sales or on online marketplaces like Kijiji or local buy-and-sells on Facebook can be problematic to both the buyer and the seller.

Therres mentioned the issue with purchasing a used car seat, but those selling them can run into trouble.

“There is a liability issue with selling your second-hand car seat to someone else, and what may come back to you because it’s a liability from your aspect in saying the car seat is safe to be used,” Therres said.

He said the Saskatchewan Safety Council and Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI) recommend against purchasing second-hand car seats because you don’t know how the car seat has been treated, or if it has previously been in a collision.

“Those of us here at [Melfort Ambulance]… if we’re bopping around and there [are] garage sales or car sales and we see someone that’s selling a car seat there, we’ll go and buy the car seat so we’ll destroy it properly,” Therres said.

You can take your expired car seats to Melfort Ambulance at 310 Division Street.

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cam.lee@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @camlee1974