With spring around the corner and daffodils in bloom, it’s time to start thinking about Easter. We love Easter (especially the chocolate!), but like any other holiday, the waste produced over the Easter period is excessive, to say the least.
Matt Dobson, GWP Group
You can see why we feel this way. In the UK, Easter egg packaging creates over 8000 tonnes of waste yearly, equivalent to over 50 blue whales! This is a shocking amount, especially when a considerable amount of packaging has already been eliminated by Easter egg manufacturers. In 2021, for example, Mondelēz, the parent company of Green and Blacks and Cadbury, eliminated 6.4 million plastic windows from its easter egg packaging. Although, in the name of “transparency”, they have said, “Our Easter eggs typically contain other products in their original packaging, that may include plastic flow-wrap”. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find any Easter eggs with no plastic packaging at all. We found this list of plastic-free Easter eggs that found none of the major Easter egg manufacturers (Cadbury, Mars, Thorntons and Lindt).
Thorntons is by far the worst offender, with 36% of the weight of its Easter eggs being packaging. Along with not buying eggs with excessive packaging, you can sign this petition asking Thorntons to ditch the plastic packaging in its Easter eggs.
It is disappointing to see the continued use of plastic packaging in Easter eggs, especially when 62% of European consumers indicate they would be willing to pay more for food products with less plastic packaging. In a positive step forward this year, Asda announced that it is reducing 98 per cent of its plastic across its Extra Special Easter egg range – that’s equivalent to 16 tonnes.
However, when it comes to Easter egg packaging, plastic is only one of a plethora of issues. The size of the packaging also poses significant problems. The chocolate egg only takes up an average of 38% of an Easter egg box. Reducing the packaging size would allow more eggs to be delivered at once, reducing the amount of fuel needed for shipping.
Food waste is also a concern at this time of year. Almost 8500 tonnes of food waste are generated in the UK each Easter, with 8 million hot cross buns, 19 million potatoes, 20 million vegetables and 5 million slices of meat being thrown away over the Easter weekend. We recommend only buying what you will eat and composting any food waste you may have to help combat these statistics.
We still have a long way to go for a waste-free Easter. But, with conscious consumer choices, we believe that unnecessary Easter waste could be a thing of the past. We hope we can count on your help to combat this issue.