On a weekend when Irish consumers will munch their way through enough Easter eggs to fill six Olympic-sized swimming pools, Repak has urged the public to recycle the packaging, writes Shane Hegarty.
However, the recycling initiative said the amount of packaging included with the chocolate would only be reduced if consumers put pressure on the industry.
According to Repak, 490,000 kilos of used Easter egg packaging will be generated in Irish households this Easter. Because pubs were closed yesterday, a further increase in empty wine bottles and beer cans will bring the total waste generated in Irish households over Easter to 42,000 tonnes. According to Repak, only 40 per cent of this waste was recycled last year.
"People mightn't realise that all of the packaging is fully recyclable," said Darrell Crowe, marketing manager with Repak. "The plastic inserts can go into the same recycling facilities as plastic bottles as they're made of the same materials as soft drink bottles.
"Aluminium, as we know, is a valuable resource, so we would encourage people to scrunch up the foil and put it into a steel or aluminium can so it doesn't get lost during collection."
Repak estimates that over the Easter the Irish public's love of chocolate will leave behind over 16,000 kilos of aluminium foil wrapping, 216,000 kilos of plastic packaging and 353,000 kilos of card or paper packaging. The discarded card alone would be enough to cover an area 10 times the size of St Stephen's Green.
Because many people will have had alcohol at home yesterday, Repak estimates that the Easter period will result in over 15 million empty beverage cans and one million empty wine bottles.
Mr Crowe also suggested that people wait before bringing their waste to recycling facilities to avoid overloading them.
Recent research has shown that, by weight, Easter eggs can comprise up to 45 per cent of packaging. By volume, packaging can comprise almost 90 per cent of the product.
Mr Crowe said the confectionary industry continued to include large amounts of packaging because consumers make their decisions based on it.
"Consumers need to put more pressure on the businesses. They need to say no to this packaging, but the reality is that they're not."