Happy Easter Chocolate Snufflers

What does Easter mean to you? A religious celebration, the start of spring, some extra time off work? Or chocolate, chocolate, chocolate?

Over Packaged?
The ‘chocolate, chocolate, chocolate’ scenario is definately my forte. But over-packaging is a term that has become synonymous with Easter chocolate over recent years.

A typical chocolate egg in my mind includes: chocolate treats suspended in a plastic bag inside the chocolate egg, the egg wrapped in foil and then encased in a protective plastic mould that is nigh-on impossible to break into, the whole package topped off with an oversize cardboard box. Did you ever open out the box from an Easter egg in years gone past? They always had what must surely be the most complicated design in the world.

According to WRAP, over 3000 tonnes of waste is produced by Easter packaging each year, and in a poll conducted by Packaging in Perspective in 2009, 59% of British adults thought Easter eggs were over-packaged.

Madness! Madness!
When I was little, Easter was measured by the number of eggs I received. More eggs meant not only more chocolate, but more people who loved me, and a better standing with my friends when I got back to school after the holidays, ‘How many did you get?’ being the typical first greeting on re-entering the playground. I had no qualms about eating them – still don’t – but my big brother would save and save his to the point where Christmas would come around and he’d still have a chocolate bunny sitting on his bookshelf. What was the packaging like on these eggs? I don’t honestly remember – what was inside was always considerably more important, after all - so when did it begin? And is it just a UK thing, or are all western countries obsessed with over-sanitising their chocolate?

There is light at the end of the tunnel
‘Smarties have got plastic-free Easter eggs!’ Bron announced on his return from a shopping expedition a few weeks ago.

‘Are you sure?’ I asked, thinking it just doesn’t sound right. Maybe he was mistaken.

‘Well, it says on their packaging, ‘Plastic Free!’’

Huh, well that’s quite surprising and interesting. ‘Ooh, I’ll have to get one,’ was my immediate thought. ‘And then I can blog about it!’

Tempting as it was, I didn’t immediately rush out to buy one, but next time I walked into Sainsbury’s there they were, a big pallet of Easter eggs ready to greet me right inside the front door, piled high above my head, and each individual egg shouting, ‘Plastic Free!’ ‘Plastic Free!’ Of course, the slight irony here is that the pallet was still wrapped in thick plastic cling-film to keep all the eggs from falling off and scattering at my feet, but I guess you can’t have everything.

The Smarties Way
So if Smarties, care of Nestle, have seen the light and realised that chocolate eggs can survive the retail experience without copious plastic support, why hasn’t it been done before? Apparently commercial egg-makers were concerned that less packaging would make eggs look smaller. Smaller eggs equals less attractive to customers; being less attractive equals fewer sales. Seems a bit silly really, especially when you see this little video detailing consumer reactions to plastic-free eggs, care of The Zero Waste Checkout.

Furthermore, in an era where, at my guess, around 95% of chocolate and confectionary on the high street shelves have switched from classic paper wrappers to plastic, the Easter egg is not the only Smarties product to be plastic-free. In 2005 they switched from a tube with a plastic lid to simple cardboard.

Happy Easter
Thankfully, Smarties are not the only ones to be jumping on this particular bandwagon. Pictured here is my Easter gift this year from my parents, beautifully plastic free (Mummy, Daddy, maybe next year you could buy a plastic-free egg for everybody rather than just me?). And in 2009, Cadbury’s, Marks and Spencer, and Mars also took steps towards a plastic free Easter in the future; baby steps perhaps, but at least it’s a start.



P.S. Read about the Courtauld Commitment to learn more about which retailers are doing what to reduce their packaging.

Post!

Ah, post. Who doesn’t love getting post? Well, I’m not so keen on bills or scary looking letters from the Inland Revenue, but hand-written post is a different story. Post lets you know that someone is thinking of you, maybe that someone even loves you.

And what’s better than post? Parcels!

So when I dragged myself through the door after a long and frustrating day at work to find a parcel sitting on my doormat, my interest was immediately piqued. Hmm, I thought. I don’t recognise the hand-writing, so it’s not from my mum or anyone else I know…

In the world of post, is there anything better than a parcel? Well, duh: a parcel with chocolate in it of course!

‘I tried so hard to find chocolates without plastic,’ the accompanying card said. ‘And all the best ones were sealed up.’ I beg to differ: these chocolates are not only yummy, but organic and fair-trade, care of the Organic Seed and Bean Company. I’d take a picture of them for you if I hadn’t already ripped into the packet and eaten half of them.

And the mysterious benefactor of the chocolate? My MA tutor, Susy, to say thank you for giving her full-time students a tour of the bookshop I work in. Effectively, she’s sent me chocolate for doing my job – not that I’m going to send it back! Thank you Susy. It is a really nice and thoughtful thing to do.

But: here’s my dilemma. To tell her or not to tell her that, after all her effort and consideration into my plastic plight, her careful selection of chocolate without a plastic seal around the box – something that is much easier thought about than found – do I tell her that hidden away inside the cardboard the chocolate was sealed in plastic?

I do find it both sad and ironic that this particular chocolate company, having considered so carefully where they will source their fair-trade ingredients, how to flavour their product, and how to present it in as natural way as possible, have hidden the plastic away underneath. I know and understand that in many cases food products are sealed in plastic today for hygiene purposes, but surely that’s not really necessary with chocolate – it’s just what we’re used to these days, what we’re told we need. But do we really need it with everything?

And as I write this I’m wondering how psychological it all is, too. Is there a perception that the better items are those that are wrapped in plastic?

Plastic or Chemicals?

I’ve got a terrible sweet tooth. Chocolate, cake, you name it, I’d probably eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if I could.

Chocolate-free plastic is fairly easy to come across. More and more confectioners are packaging their chocolate bars in plastic ‘stay-fresh’ wrapping (err, why? It’s not exactly as if chocolate goes off, after all, is it?), but if I avoid snack bars like Mars and go straight for the proper slabs of chocolate I’m pretty safe. The paper-clad brands are usually more expensive, but they’re also usually the organic or fair trade brands, so although it costs me a little more, I feel better for buying it, and better for eating it too.

Sugar for home baking, though, is a different story.

Sugar Sweet
I am standing in the baking goods aisle, one bag of sugar in one hand, one bag in the other hand.

Bron just looks at me. I think he’s really starting to get fed up with my whole indecisive nature, although you’d think he’d have gotten used to it by now.

‘It’s supposed to be about plastic,’ I say to him. ‘So I should get this one. Right?’ I hold up my left hand. The bag I’m holding is made of paper. Perfect. Right?

‘But do you really want to be eating the chemicals?’ he asks.

‘Well, I always have white sugar in my tea at work, don’t I? So what difference is it really going to make?’

He raises his eyebrows at me.

I’m starting to feel a bit self conscious; I’m sure that all the customers around me have been listening to my little rant and are now skirting their trolleys in as wide a berth as they can manage.

‘I’m not even sure that they do add bleach to it,’ I say, lifting up the paper bag again. ‘It’s just that that’s what I’ve always thought. Raw sugar’s got to be better for you, hasn’t it? Because it hasn’t been processed.’ I’m going over old ground again. What I really wish is that Bron would make the choice for me, but I’ve learnt by this point in our relationship that that probably isn’t going to happen. At least, not unless he gets really pissed off at me. I wonder how far I can push it? But the supermarket on a Friday evening probably isn’t the best time to test that.

A pound of golden, copper-coloured raw cane sugar in my right hand, packaged in plastic; a pound of white caster sugar in my left hand, packaged in paper. They are both fair trade, so we’re on equal ground as far as that goes. Raw, or unrefined sugar, means that it contains more of its natural minerals, and that it hasn’t got any of the extra chemicals that get added to it during the refining process, such as phosphoric acid. Or the dreaded plastic bag.

I am koo-keed down, knees bent, balancing on my toes, literally weighing up the pros and cons of each sugar both in my head and in my hands. I want raw cane sugar in a paper bag. But, of course, I can’t have that. That would be too simple. So which is it going to be?

Plastic or chemicals?
It seems so unfair that I have to choose between the two – why can’t I have my unrefined sugar in a paper bag? Obviously it’s possible to supply sugar in paper, because of this other brand that’s on the shelf.

In the end, I choose the unrefined sugar in the plastic bag, and it was a choice I really didn’t like to have to make. But it’s set me a new challenge for the coming days: source the right sugar in the right packaging from another store. Even if Sainsbury’s doesn’t do it, hopefully one of my local health stores will.