STUNELL – “HOW ECO-FRIENDLY IS YOUR EASTER EGG?”

Andrew Stunell MP is due to release a report into the recyclability of Easter Egg packaging, which names and shames the best and worst of Easter Egg companies.

The eggs sampled for the report included Cadbury, Sainsbury's, Thorntons, Mars, Green & Black's, Lindt, Marks & Spencer and Nestle. Green & Black's came out on top with Sainsbury's coming last in how much of their Easter Egg packaging is recyclable.

Commenting Andrew said -

"This weekend millions of chocolate eggs will be unwrapped and eaten, and millions of rubbish bins stuffed with the wrappings. This exercise makes the point that the industry can still do much more to make sure those wrappings are recycled, and do much more to cut down on the packaging they use. And I hope it makes egg-eaters like me take 10 seconds to check on how to recycle and save clogging up landfill sites all over Britain."

The study found that the big three confectionary companies, Mars, Nestle & Cadbury have continued to use widely recyclable materials for the majority of their packaging.

Luxury eggs such as Thorntons, Lindt, Sainsbury's and Marks & Spencer continue to rely heavily on plastic packaging, most of which will end up in landfill.

6 out of 8 of the easter eggs sampled for this study provided varying degrees of recycling information. Mars, Nestle, Sainsbury's, Thornton's and Marks & Spencer all provide clear breakdowns of the recyclability of each different part of the packaging. This leaves the consumer in no doubt as to what parts of the packaging they can recycle and what parts they definitely cannot. Lindt failed to provide such a detailed breakdown as did Green & Black's and Cadbury.

The study concluded that more pressure is needed to encourage the use of widely recyclable materials in order to make a significant reduction in our country's landfill waste and to lead the way to a more eco-friendly future.