Don't roll up the tinfoil and other Easter wastage reduction hacks

Friday, 19 April 2019

The Easter bunny is coming, but with him comes a trail of colourful foil and plastic rubbish. 

Some New Zealanders are planning a more earth-friendly Easter, including making their own eggs, baking at home and saying no to expensive hollow eggs - one of the most over-packaged products available. 

In 2018 a UK consumer group revealed packaging alone accounts for up to a quarter of the total weight of popular Easter eggs. 

New Zealand doesn't have the infrastructure to recycle most plastics, and even tin foil wrappers can't be recycled in some of the largest cities. 

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Tin foil can't be recycled in Wellington or Christchurch, but it can in Auckland - if it's not scrunched up.

Auckland Council waste solutions programme director Parul Sood said while aluminium foil was a recyclable product, it was often rolled into balls too small to be picked up by automated recycling machines. 

'If you are keen to recycle Easter egg foils you will need to ensure they are clean and then gather them into one large ball so it can be processed through the materials recycling facility.'

Dr Sommer Kapitan, senior marketing lecturer at AUT, said Easter egg packaging was intensive to stop eggs breaking during transportation. 

This year Kapitan and her family have salvaged plastic egg-shaped packaging from the year before to make new 'eggs' filled with stickers and other treats . 

Standing in the grocery store deciding what Easter treats to buy, she realised what was most important was how her kids felt. 

Making Easter eggs at home, baking hot cross buns and buying winter clothes instead of chocolate was less wasteful, and also healthier, she said. 

'If we can find a way of being sustainable and fun then we're recreating that sense of tradition. [Easter] is deep in our hearts, it's a memory and it's a way that we feel that we're trying to replicate.'

Father of three Caleb Carnie says every year his family makes the effort to buy New Zealand made chocolate and wrap homemade Easter eggs in baking paper themselves.

The baking and wrapping involves the kids, and is better for the environment, he said.     

The Warehouse Group chief sustainability officer David Benattar said some packaging was necessary to prevent damage to eggs and one of its major stockists, Waikato Valley Chocolate, had reduced its Easter egg packaging to save waste. 'We encourage people to dispose of their Easter egg packaging thoughtfully.'

A Whittaker's spokeswoman said the foil from their chocolate Easter Kiwi could be recycled through regular aluminium recycling programmes. 

EarthSavvy founder Kristy Lorson said the country should be consuming less plastic this Easter.

Easter was not as wasteful as Christmas, but was still problematic, she said.

'The good news, however, is that Easter waste is easily avoided.'

What can be recycled? 

Easter egg foil 

In Wellington and Christchurch, no. In Auckland maybe, but only if it's clean and not rolled too small.  

Easter egg boxes

Cardboard packaging around Easter eggs can be recycled, but not soft plastic wrapping - and New Zealand currently has no soft plastic recycling collections. 

Hot cross bun bags

No, if you can scrunch plastic in your hand, then it is a 'soft plastic' and cannot be recycled.