Mulch Men

A long time ago, from the depths of space, a meteorite entered the earths atmosphere and shattered into thousands of pieces. The pieces landed everywhere; some pieces fell into the oceans, others in the deserts and some in towns and cities across the globe. However the meteorite was not as it seemed. Hidden inside were hundreds of tiny Mulch Men. Emerging from the soil they took different forms from the surrounding environment and started their quest to find their lost friends. Can you help reunite the Mulch Men?

This project explored the problems associated with children’s toys and tries to solve them by creating safe, eco-friendly toys that older children would enjoy playing with.

Some toys today are made from materials which contain toxic chemicals that can be harmful to children, and they cannot be recycled easily so end up in landfill. However Mulch Men are different as they are made from a non-toxic biopolymer which can biodegrade in your own back yard. This means that as well as being safe for children they are also safe for the environment as they biodegrade into carbon and water thus returning their nutrients to the soil.

Each character can transform into another as they are made of two separate layers of biopolymer; the outer layer degrades in 2 weeks and the inner layer in 3 months, which allows the transformation to take place. In this series the Mad Scientist turns into the Goblin, the Soldier turns into the Zombie and the Spaceman turns into the Alien.

Mulch Men would be sold separately in toyshops and newsagents. Each would come in it’s own pot, which would be used to transform the characters and also during play to form landscapes or to hide characters inside. Larger landscapes could be bought, which would attach together to create an entire world. The pots would also attach to the landscapes and could be used in the same way, which would add another level of interaction to the toy.

A big thank you to all those who have emailed me about Mulch Men. Unfortunately Mulch Men are not currently available on the market. However if anything changes I will definitely let you all know.