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Cranberry Township To Conduct 'Old Car Seat Take Back' On Wednesday

The Cranberry Township Emergency Medical Service is hoping to destroy 50 car seats this week. 

“The thing that people fail to realize is that car seats have expiration dates,” said Cranberry Twp. EMS Deputy Chief Ted Fessides. “Typically it’s seven years from the date of manufacture.”

In an effort to get old and otherwise unsafe car seats off the roads the township will be conducting an “Old Car Seat Take Back” from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 27 at 20727 Route 19 in Cranberry Township.

“It’s not recommended that you use a used car seat unless it is yours or you got it from a neighbor or you got it from an aunt because there is no way to know what happened to that car seat.” Fessides said. 

If a seat has been in an accident or mistreated, it might no longer be safe and the plastic might have begun to degrade and weaken if it has had prolonged exposure to sunlight and temperature extremes often seen in cars.

The department held a similar round up in the fall with the help of AAA, where they collected and destroyed 25 unusable seats. The goal this week is to collect at least twice that number.

Fessides said even if a parent has no other option, they should bring in those old seats. 

“Since we are a fitting station here we do have a loaner program, so if you do have an unsafe seat bring it on in, we’ll take care of getting rid of it and we will actually loan you one until you get another one,” Fessides said.

Cranberry EMS became a fitting station in 2014. Fessides said that is when the township launched an effort to focus on child safety issues. It made that decision after being named the best place in the state to raise a child by Bloomberg Business in 2013.

“We kind of wanted to build off that,” Fessides said.

Free car seat fittings are done 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday by appointment. Those appointments can be made with Fessides via email (Safekids@Cranberryambulance.org) or by calling 724-776-4480 ext. 1902. No appointment is needed for the car seat take back.