Woodstock Target Offering Car Seat Recycling and Free Safety Checks Saturday

Woodstock's Target store will host a car seat recycling and child passenger safety event Saturday, giving local families a practical way to responsibly dispose of old seats while getting expert, hands-on guidance before their next drive with the kids.

Target will accept all types of car seats for recycling, including infant seats, bases, convertible seats, combination seats and booster seats. Critically, the store will also take seats that are expired, damaged or have been involved in a crash, items that can't safely be passed along to another family and too often end up in landfills simply because parents don't know what else to do with them.

The Georgia Governor's Office of Highway Safety will staff an on-site booth loaded with educational materials, with a particular emphasis on child passenger safety. The agency oversees Georgia's statewide efforts to reduce traffic fatalities and serious injuries, and getting children home safely is among its highest priorities.

Perhaps the most valuable resource at the event will be the Certified Child Passenger Safety Technicians, CPSTs, who will be on hand to work one-on-one with caregivers. These trained, credentialed professionals can assess whether a seat is the right fit for a child's age, height and weight, confirm it's correctly installed in the vehicle, and walk parents through proper harness use. That last part matters more than many families realize: studies have consistently found that a large majority of car seats are used with at least one critical error, often through no fault of a well-meaning parent navigating dense instruction manuals and vehicle-specific quirks.

For Cherokee County families, the event neatly solves two problems in a single stop. That outgrown infant seat collecting dust in the garage can be dropped off and recycled rather than trashed, and the new convertible seat sitting in the back seat can be checked and properly installed before the drive home. The Woodstock Police Department shared the announcement, a sign that local law enforcement is squarely behind the effort.

No appointment is needed to recycle a seat. Families planning to have a seat inspected should be prepared to bring their vehicle so technicians can check the installation in the actual car the child rides in.