Reduce Sustainable Easter

How to be More Sustainable at Easter 

Easter is a time of celebration but unfortunately it can be a wasteful time of year, so we have put together some top tips to reduce your waste whilst you celebrate Easter and hopefully save you some money in the process. A win for you and the planet. 

Easter Eggs and Chocolate  

In the UK, we buy over 80 million boxed chocolate eggs a year.  

It’s a whole lot of extra packaging that could end up in your bin and it is estimated that the surrounding packaging makes up one third of the total weight of a boxed Easter egg. 

Over the past few years retailers and manufacturers have reduced the amount of packaging around Easter eggs and are using increasingly recyclable materials. However some single-use packaging is still used to wrap our eggs up, so it is worth keeping an eye out and opting for an egg that has minimal packaging. 

Easter Food  

In the UK it is traditional to celebrate Easter with a big meal . These occasions are great and should be enjoyed but buying more food than you need is bad for your wallet and the environment. Some of the advice below can help you make the most of the food you have ; 

• Store your foods appropriately to keep them fresher for longer. Follow the packaging advice on storage when possible. Advice can be found on Love Food Hate Waste’s Food Storage A-Z. 

• Knowing the difference between best before and use by dates can mean you aren’t wasting food. If you’re not sure of the difference, see here. 

• Make good use of your fridge and freezer by making sure they are set at the right temperature. You’ll find a handy guide here. 

• Make the most of your freezer by knowing what you can and can’t freeze, how long items can be frozen for, and how to prevent issues like freezer burn. You’ll find advice here. 

• Meal planning and portioning is a good way of minimising waste. You’ll find a handy portion planner here. 

• If you can’t eat it can you compost it? Lots of uncooked food waste can be composted; for more information, please click here.  

Reuse  

Easter Decorations 

Decorating for a change of season or celebration is common and lots of people like to do this to welcome the change. Shops also stock up on seasonal decorations and accessories, often selling items that are designed to be used once and thrown away, so you have to buy even more next year. 

If you plan on decorating for Easter, we recommend that you buy things that you love so that you can use them time and time again. If you’ve fallen out of love with last year’s, before putting them in your bin, see if you could repurpose them, sell them or give them away to charity. Just because you no longer like it doesn’t mean someone else won’t make good use of it. 

Other items that you could reuse  

• Special occasion outfits 

• Reusable Easter eggs for egg hunts or as gifts 

Ready to Recycle? 

Following the tips below will help turn your rubbish into something new by recycling it. Not following these steps may contaminate a whole load and mean that other recyclable items can get wasted. 

Card/ cardboard: avoid ripping into small pieces and keep whole and flatten before putting into your recycling bin so it takes up less space. Please only put dry card in your recycling. 

Foil: scrunch clean foil up into a ball and collect separate small bits together to make one large ball so that the machinery captures it. Please only put clean foil in the bin and try to remove any leftover chocolate crumbs before scrunching the foil into a ball. 

Plastic moulds: clean plastic moulds that are sometimes used to hold your eggs in the box can be placed into your recycling bin. 

Although the items above can be recycled, the soft plastic chocolate and sweet wrappers that sometimes accompany your egg cannot go in your kerbside recycling collection although many supermarkets do have collection points. If you live in Leicestershire and need a reminder, please visit our Recycle page. 

Easter Cards  

If you send Easter cards to celebrate the occasion, try to buy cards that can be recycled. Unfortunately, lots of cards have glitter or have extra bits stuck on like pieces of ribbon and bows.  Cards with glitter or ribbons cannot be accepted as a part of your recycling and can contaminate the rest of your recycling; they should be put in your general waste bin.  

Cards that have lights or play a tune when you open them should have the battery removed and recycled separately. 

Look out for FSC labelled cards sourced from sustainably managed forests and/or which have a high recycled content. Or try sending greetings electronically to avoid waste entirely, and ask your friends, family, colleagues, and neighbours to do the same.  

Have you learnt some great new tips to help you? Consider following us for more insight on Facebook @Leicestershire Recycling or even sharing the messages with others to help us in the fight against waste in Leicestershire.