How to Have a Zero Waste Easter

Have you seen any packaging-free Easter eggs this Easter?  If not, you’re right – they’re hard to find.  Typically a time for indulging, particularly in chocolate, and celebrating with family and friends Easter comes at a cost to our pockets and to the environment.

Here are some great ideas to share with the family to reduce packaging and waste this Easter.

• If your preference is a zero waste Easter, politely suggest to family and friends that you would prefer to celebrate without chocolate eggs, cards and gifts. Instead spend quality time enjoying a meal or taking a walk together.
• Buy Easter chocolate that doesn’t require packaging.
• Ensure any left over food is compostable including the packaging.
• Brighten up your home by reusing glass bottles and jars to display flowers from the garden.And lastly, ensure your decorations are compostable.

Make your Own

• Make your own eggs.  Invest in egg- or bunny-shaped chocolate moulds or cookie cutters, which you can use again in future, to make your own treats and gifts.  If you’re making your own Easter chocolate treats, ensure the ingredients that you buy are either bought from a bulk store and not packaged or packaged in renewable and compostable food packaging.  Have fun and be creative making unique bespoke items.
• Make a fun Easter bunny bottle from a used glass bottle. You’ll need 1 x glass bottle, a round piece of brightly-coloured paper cut from wrapping paper scraps and two bunny ears, made from an old cereal box for example, a black knoki pen to draw the bunny’s face and glue.   Centre and stick the paper circle onto the bottle top to create a hat.  Then stick the bunny ears on top and draw the bunny’s eyes, nose, whiskers and mouth onto the top section of the bottle.  Fill the bottle with treats of your choice, use as a table decoration or serve chilled water in the bottles.
• Make Easter crackers. You’ll need toilet rolls tubes, wrapping paper scraps, ribbon or string, coloured pens, any decorative items you can find around the house and glue.  Stick paper and decorations onto the toilet roll tube; fill the tube with small edible treats like Smarties or Speckled Eggs.  Experiment with whatever bits and pieces of decoration you can find to come up with unique looks.  You can even use the crackers as place names for each guest at your Easter lunch table – simply write their name on with one of the coloured pens.
• Here you’ll find some more Easter ideas.

Happy Easter!