As we get ready to celebrate Easter, give a thought to all the extra waste that comes with it. 

• In many of the UK’s best-selling chocolate eggs, the plastic and cardboard packaging accounts for over a quarter of the total product weight.  
• On average, the chocolate itself takes up only 38% of an Easter egg box (by volume).  
• The charity Oxfam also reports that, on average, 200g of chocolate egg uses 54 grams of card and 2 grams of foil in its packaging.  
• Between 10 million and 20 million greeting cards are sent and received around Easter. These cards add to the mountain of waste and recycling.  
• Consumers spend as much as £415 million on Easter egg chocolate each year in the UK.  
• Easter egg sales make up 10 per cent of Britain’s annual spending on chocolate* 

By choosing sustainable packaging, recycling, and reusing items in your Easter celebrations, you can help conserve resources and reduce the amount of waste sent to the landfill.  

From choosing recyclable Easter egg packaging to composting and re-using your Easter dinner leftovers, there are so many ways to have a sustainable Easter celebration! 

Here’s our top tips to having an eggs-cellent Easter  

Reduce 

• Avoid cut flowers for your Easter table centre-piece - consider potted plants you can enjoy all year round. 
• Shop local, shop savvy: Buying local or farm fresh supports the community, reduces harmful CO2 emissions, and produces less waste. Your food will taste better, have more nutrients and will have fewer carbon miles. 

Reuse 

• visit Love Food Hate Waste’s website for simple recipes to use up your Easter  leftovers. 
• Repurpose last year’s Easter decorations or use natural alternatives such greenery and branches from the garden – you can compost after  
• Get crafty and make a sock or egg packaging rabbit!  

Recycle 

• Card/ cardboard: Pop any cardboard in your recycling. 
• Foil: Scrunch any clean foil up into a ball and recycle.  
• Easter cards: Try to buy cards that can be recycled. Cards with glitter can’t recycled as the glitter can come off and contaminate the rest of your recycling so pop in your general waste bin. Cards that sing or play a tune when you open them should have the battery removed and recycled separately. Same goes for ribbon 

*Facts courtesy of WRAP, Packaging News and Oxfam