Although the aluminium foil and plastic wrappers on Easter eggs may look pretty, it’s not so pretty when it comes to the impact it has on our environment through the energy and resources required to produce it. Also, most of it still ends up in landfill. So, why not try to AVOID or REDUCE the foil and plastic packaging this Easter? Here are some ways you can do this:
Avoid & Reduce
- Make your own chocolate eggs in moulds
- Paint or dye boiled or wooden eggs as a fun activity to do with children.
- Bake your own hot cross buns and avoid the plastic bags they are packaged in. Or, purchase hot cross buns from a bakery and ask for them to be placed in a paper bag that can be recycled easily.
- Avoid or reduce the number of small individually wrapped eggs.
- Pick the eggs with the least packaging.
- Purchase fewer, larger chocolate eggs so that the foil can easily be balled together and recycled.
- Look for alternatives such as fillable wooden or cloth bags and fill them with package-free or homemade treats.
- Avoid plastic wrapped, pre-packaged Easter baskets. Create your own gift basket with homemade chocolates or baked goodies instead.
Reuse
- Re-Use foil wrappers to make decorations and paintings.
- Re-use gift boxes, strawberry or tomato punnets to package eggs or other gifts.
- Re-use moulded plastic packaging for making your own chocolate eggs.
Recycle
Did you know? Recycling aluminium saves 95% of the energy required to produce Aluminium from raw materials.
Thanks to the 10 cent refund, South Ozzie’s are great at recycling aluminium cans, but did you know that you can also recycle aluminium foil?
- Scrunch up your aluminium foil wrappers into the size of a small fist or medium size Easter egg, then pop them in the yellow lidded recycling bin. Alternatively you can place smaller pieces into an aluminium drink can to contain them before placing it in the recycle bin. Please don’t place flat sheets or small pieces of aluminium loose in the recycling bin as they will get caught up in the paper and cause contamination issues.
- Recycle the soft plastic bags that come with your hot cross buns. Soft plastics can be placed in the REDcycle and soft plastic recycling bins found at your local supermarket.
- Recycle the rigid moulded plastic containers (if you don’t re-use them for making your own chocolates), along with the cardboard boxes and Easter cards, in the yellow lidded recycling bin.
Compost
- After your Easter feast is over, compost your food scraps in your green organics or home compost bin
- Use natural fibre based straw or shredded paper as fillers for your Easter basket/boxes. This can then be composted
- Decorated boiled eggs or egg shells can also be composted in your green organics bin.