RECYCLE: chocs away

More than €30 million will be spent on five million Easter eggs this Easter, with the average household buying five eggs each.

Repak, the packaging recycling scheme, has urged people to recycle as much of the 375,000kg of packaging as possible.

Darrell Crowe, Repak marketing manager, said he hoped that this would be the greenest Easter ever, with the new pay-by-use bin charges encouraging people to divert as much waste as possible from landfills.

He said there was anecdotal evidence that the pay-by-use and pay-by-weight charges were beginning to yield results. "It's the only real incentive to get people to recycle," he said. Two years ago 27 per cent of people said recycling was "too much hassle" but that figure was likely to be much lower now, he said.

Three-quarters of people already claim they recycle some part of the Easter egg packaging, with most people saying they recycle the cardboard. One in two say they recycle the plastic insert and a quarter claim to recycle the foil.

Easter egg cardboard can be recycled in the dry recyclable "green" bins. Most plastic surrounding Easter eggs is PET, which can be recycled at many recycling centres. PET plastic carries a triangle with a number 1 in the centre of it.

The foil egg wrapping can be scrunched up and put in an aluminium can for recycling in your green bin or at a recycling centre.

The www.repak.ie website lists recycling centres and outlines the materials they accept.