Recycling Hints and Tips for Easter

1. Cardboard - Compress/fold cardboard box flat and put into household dry recyclable bin or bring to your nearest recycling centre.

2. Plastics – Most Easter egg molded plastic is PET denoted by a triangle with the number 1 inside. This can go into most plastic bottle collection systems.

3. Foil – We recommend you Scrunch these up, and put the foil in an aluminium can and place in dry recyclable household collection bin or bring it to your nearest recycling centre.
4. Check http://www.repak.ie/ to find the nearest centre in your area and also to check what materials they accept.

5. Make Easter treats instead of buying shop bought eggs. Children will love helping make chocolate cornflake cakes, or creating Easter bunny-shaped biscuits. If you do buy Easter eggs, get ones with minimal recyclable packaging and use a reusable bag to take them home.

6. Recycle Easter cards in your household bin collection. Better still, instead of sending a card, reduce waste by sending your greeting by e-mail.

7. If you are planning a big Easter lunch, buy loose fruit and vegetables, rather than pre-packaged ones.

8. Don't forget to compost the fruit and vegetable peelings. If you've been gardening over the weekend, add your plant prunings and grass cuttings. The compost will improve the quality of the soil and help plants grow.

9. Put any glass bottles, jars and tins in your local BringBank

The Easter Egg tradition

Ø The Easter egg tradition began with painted egg shells but the modern variety is made from chocolate and packaged in a variety of colourful packaging.

Ø The first chocolate eggs were made in Europe in the early 19th century (source Checkout.ie). Since then these chocolate eggs have become richer and more varied and come in ever more elaborate wrapping.
Ø In 2006, the world’s most expensive Easter egg was created by La Maison du Chocolat in London. The Diamond Stella Egg was 60cm tall and covered with 100 half-carat diamonds. Its price tag was a mere snip at $100,000 (source http://www.bornrich.org/).
Ø This pales in comparison with Fabergé eggs. The first Fabergé egg was created in 1884 as an Easter egg for Czar Alexander III. These elaborate eggs were made of gold and silver and decorated with diamonds, sapphires and rubies. A total of 57 were made for various czars. One of these eggs the “Winter Egg” was sold in 2002 for $9.5 million. Another, the Coronation Egg is valued at between $18-24 million (Source http://www.artsjournal.com/).
Ø This price tag may prove a bit steep for most people this Easter. However, the Irish Easter egg market is worth a staggering €32 million, with over 6.5 million sold at an average price of €5 each. People are willing to spend increasingly larger sums of money on Easter eggs but it is worth bearing in mind the other costs to the environment at Easter.

Repak Launch Easter Appeal 2008

Consumers can save 22,000 tonnes of carbon emissions this Easter, equivalent of removing 12,000 cars from our roads

Egg eater’s carbon foot print can be reduced by 22,000 tonnes, if we recycle over 17,000 tonnes of packaging waste this Easter period
Saving 22,000 carbon tonnes is the equivalent of taking 12,000 cars off the road
Irish chocoholics will munch their way through circa 6.4 million Easter Eggs
624,160 kilos of Easter egg packaging waste will be generated
Repak calls on consumers to recycle all packaging from cardboard and plastic to aluminium foil wrapping.

Target of 45% of all packaging to be recycled this Easter

By recycling the packaging from the 6.4 million eggs consumed Irish households can save up to 811 tonnes of carbon, the equivalent of just over 20,000 bags of coal. The annual chocolate splurge will result in the creation of 624 tonnes of additional used packaging however Irish consumers can offset their chocolate eating guilt by making an egg-stra effort to recycle over the Easter period.

Easter egg boxes are not the only used packaging that householders need to be aware of at this time. The Easter festivities will generate over 39,000 tonnes of used packaging in total. Last year consumers recycled 16,000 tonnes or just over 40% of all packaging but this year Repak is calling on all households to help them recycle 17,500 tonnes of this packaging or over 45% of all packaging generated. If all this packaging is recycled it will result in 22,000 tonnes of carbon saved which is the equivalent of taking 12,000 cars off our roads

Also the housebound festivities on Good Friday result in a significant increase in household packaging. 7 million beverage cans and 2 million bottles of wine will be consumed. Repak is urging all households to use their household collections, Recycling Centres and BringBanks to recycle all of this used packaging rather than sending it to landfill.
Commenting at the launch, Darrell Crowe of Repak said “Easter is a great time for giving and receiving special treats, however we always see a spike in the amount of additional used packaging that is produced at this time. This year we are trying to influence consumer to recycle more of their used packaging and their Easte egg packaging in particular by making them aware of the positive impact recycling can have on the environment as a whole, particularly in the terms of carbon emission savings. We recently launched a household carbon calculator on our website so if consumers are interested in finding out how their carbon footprint can be reduced by taking individual action and by measuring their impact when they visit the carbon calculator on our website.”

It is estimated that if all the eggs consumed in Ireland over the coming Easter period were to be converted into chocolate liquid, weighed or measured, there would be enough eggs equivalent to:
The weight of more than 78 killer whales
Create a path as long as 4 full length triathlons
Households will generate over 42,000 tonnes of used packaging over Easter but last year

only 40% of it was recycled.

It is estimated that over the Easter period Irish households will create the following amount of Easter Egg packaging waste:
17,270 kilos of aluminium foil packaging waste equal to just over 1,000 mountain bikes.
376,596 kilos of card or paper packaging waste which laid out flat would cover an area 50

times the size of Sydney Opera House
230,295 kilos of PET plastic packaging waste if recycled saves 1.6 cubic kilometers of landfill

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Irish households will generate over 42,000 kilos of used packaging in total over Easter period but last year only 40% of it was recycled.

Irish households will produce circa 42,000 tonnes of used packaging this Easter. Last year over 16,000 tonnes or 40% of all used packaging was recycled during the Easter period this was 14% up on the previous year. Due to Repaks financial supports and campaigns such as Repak Easter appeal, Repak recorded an increase in household packaging recycling of nearly 7% in 2007, recovering approximately 640,000 toones of used packaing.

Householders can visit http://www.repak.ie/ for details of your local Recycling Centres