Easter egg packaging recycling is essential to ensure no trace is left behind from the 80 million Easter eggs we buy in the UK every year. Most of us eat all the chocolate (often faster than we’d like to admit). But what we do with the card, plastic, and foil packaging affects the environment.

Chocolatiers and brands focus on bright and colourful Easter egg packaging to attract the attention of both young and older chocoholics. And it works. Who doesn’t associate that purple, red, and yellow splash with a Cadbury Crème Egg? But how easy is recycling Easter egg packaging once you’ve scoffed the chocolate?

Eggsplore some facts about Easter waste, ways to recycle Easter egg packaging, and how to reduce the amount of Easter packaging your household or business uses in this guide.

The good news is that today, most Easter egg packaging is recyclable. Only the plastic windows and some wrappers for sweets, chocolates, and treats that certain Easter eggs include are trickier or impossible to recycle. Most packaging can be recycled in your household or workplace recycling bins but check with your local authority or waste service first.

Separate the individual materials and follow these tips for recycling Easter egg packaging:

• Easter egg foil recycling – clean off any chocolate to ensure it’s clean and to avoid contamination. Scrunch it into a ball the size of your fist, which reduces the risk of small bits falling through or getting caught in the recycling machines. Then place it in your recycling bin.
• Cardboard – take out any plastic windows first and check if there’s any glitter or plastic attached. If so, these can’t be recycled and should go in your general waste bin. Most cardboard Easter egg packaging is recyclable though, just flatten it and place it in your recycling bin or a cardboard or paper bin at work.
• Plastic shell – check the type of plastic the shell is made from (the number in a recycling triangle). Most are PET1, which is the same plastic type used for plastic drinks bottles. Nearly all local authorities in the UK accept these in their household recycling bins, while you can also recycle them in commercial plastic recycling bins.
• Plastic wrappers – look at the back of the wrapper and it should say whether the wrapper is recyclable and/or have a plastic type number. Check whether your local authority accepts these in domestic recycling bins. If not, you can take them to some supermarkets that collect plastic bags and film, as well as a TerraCycle point. Otherwise, they should be disposed of with general waste.

Once you’ve separated the Easter egg packaging waste, put it in the right recycling bins, and they’ve been collected, what happens next? The recycling process is different for each type of material. Generally, Easter egg packaging is recycled in these ways:

• Foil recycling – when recycling Easter egg foil it’s sorted and recycled alongside other aluminium foil, like foil trays and aluminium drinks cans. It’s all cleaned, compressed, and melted down into raw aluminium. This is used to create new foil sheets, trays, cans, and other products.
• Cardboard recycling – waste cardboard is separated into boxboard and corrugated cardboard and different grades. It’s shredded, mixed with water to form a slurry, and combined with pulp made from wood chips. Finally, it’s filtered, chemically processed, cleaned, dried, and turned into new cardboard sheets.
• Plastic recycling – plastics are sorted and cleaned first. Then it’s shredded into flakes and melted into pellets that are used to create new plastic products. Some recycling uses waste plastic to produce petroleum.

Not everything about Easter is eggcellent. Despite that classic pun being used in every marketing campaign for the holiday, the celebrations create lots of eggstra waste (ok, the puns stop here). We Brits spend around £300 million on chocolate at Easter every year but produce tonnes more food, packaging, and other waste celebrating.

And it’s not just our additional chocolate consumption that creates more waste at this time of year. There’s extra food for an Easter feast, decorations, cards, and wrapping paper for gifts. Lots of this rubbish is recyclable, yet plenty still makes its way to landfill. With a few tips, we can change this and keep Easter the sign of new life it’s supposed to be.

Crack on with these fascinating facts about the holiday and ideas for a low and zero waste Easter at home and in your business.

Many Easter eggs come with lots of packaging that’s not always 100% recyclable – especially if it gets damaged being hidden outside. Hiding chocolate eggs with no protection isn’t a hygienic or safe idea inside or outside though. There are plenty of other ways you can plan and eggsecute (last one) a fun zero waste Easter egg hunt:

• Hide wooden eggs in the garden. Kids can find these and then get rewarded with a chocolate egg. They’re better for the environment than plastic eggs and can be reused next year or for other activities, such as painting.
• Make your own paper or card eggs if you’re having an indoor hunt. It’s a great way to use up any old paper and card you’ve got lying around and it can be recycled.
• Buy chocolate Easter eggs in foil without the additional plastic casing. This protects the chocolate when placed outside and the foil is recyclable.
• Decorate small stones with egg designs that you can reuse or wash off after the hunt.
• Give kids a map and clues to follow, rather than searching for eggs, with a big Easter-themed prize at the end.

Lots of businesses and homes use plastic grass to add a spring touch. However, plastic grass is rarely recyclable and can take around 500 years to degrade. If it goes to landfill the chemicals the plastic contains can leach into the ground and contaminate nearby ground and water.

There are many sustainable and recyclable Easter decorations to consider instead. Flowers, plants, and branches make a great centrepiece and can be arranged into wreaths for natural decorations. Plenty of paper and card decorations are fully recyclable or can be kept for reuse next year.

You can also make your own Easter decorations from stuff at home. Use old toilet or kitchen rolls and attach little card ears and feet to create rabbits. Traditional hand-painted eggs are another great way to use up eggshells. Paint them or use felt tip pens, and add glitter, ribbons, and any other decorations.