How To Have A Green Easter

Easter Eggs are possible one of the most over-packaged products on the market. A huge cardboard box, a plastic moulding to hold the egg in place, a shiny foil wrapping – all to hold a hollow egg, weighing only maybe 110g.

If you receive an egg like this, you can minimise the environmental impact; make sure the cardboard box goes into the paper recycling, and find out if your local recycling collection centre has facilities for plastics or aluminium foil – some places do collect this now.

The best thing to do if you are giving eggs is to choose those with the least packaging – chose ones that are only wrapped in foil, or give an Easter gift instead. How about traditional hand-painted Easter eggs and papier mache eggs using the plastic packaging from an egg as a mould? This could then be decorated and filled with sweets or gifts.

If you absolutely must give a traditional type of Easter egg there are fair-trade and organic ones available from Ethical Superstore and Natural Collection.

Some interesting facts about Easter from Nigel's Eco Store

Approximately 80 million chocolate eggs were sold in the UK in 2007.
A total of £336m was spent on Easter eggs in 2007.
In the same year, £75m was spent on Fair Trade eggs.
A survey by Friends of the Earth (FoE), Scotland revealed that in some cases, for every £1 spent on eggs, consumers could be spending more on packaging. It estimated that 4,370 tonnes of cardboard and 160 tonnes of foil waste was created by packaging in 2007.
This year, the UK is set to spend £520m on Easter eggs.

Organic & Fairtrade Easter Eggs
Guide to an Alternative Easter
Simply Green Giving

Facebook Delicious Digg This

Reduce Reuse Recycle - Your Green Guide

How To Have A Green Easter