An Eco-egg?

That’s what Easter egg manufacturer Cadbury Schweppes is experimenting with in the United Kingdom, according to a Guardian article.

The company hopes to reduce the egg’s packaging so it is merely wrapped in foil. They will then be sold from molded plastic casing to prevent the eggs from rolling around on store shelves.

More specifics of the plan’s benefit to the environment are shown below, in an excerpt from a company press release.

This Easter, the amount of plastic used will be reduced by 247 tonnes and
cardboard by 115 tonnes, saving over 2,000 trees as a result. In total, as a
result of the combination of launching the un-boxed Treasure eggs to avoid
excessive packaging and reducing packaging on the standard eggs, Cadbury will
save 1130 tonnes of packaging this Easter.

Although these eco-eggs are only available in the United Kingdom, it does bring to light the worldwide problem of excessive packaging and its detrimental effects on the environment.

In Australia, government and industry partnered to create the National Packaging Covenant, a voluntary program that aims to “minimise the environmental impacts arising from the disposal of used packaging, conserve resources through better design and production processes and facilitate the re-use and recycling of used packaging materials,” according to a statement on its Web site.

And on-line shopping giant Amazon.com notes on its Web site that it primarily uses recyclable corrugated cardboard containers to ship packages. Some of their parcels also contain air filled cushions which can be recycled or at least deflated to take up less space.

Finally, what about those dreaded peanuts? Sure they were fun to play with as a child but are they really necessary to protect items? Amazon.com apparently does not think so since they use them in less than 1 percent of packages. And those that they do use are manufactured entirely from recycled materials, according to the company’s Web site.

Closer to home, New England supermarket chains Shaw’s and Hannaford’s have both been promoting campaigns to outfit customers with reusable shopping bags. Shaw’s has sold 700,000 reusable bags, an average of 3,500 per store, according to this article in the Valley Reporter, a newspaper covering several towns in Washington County, Vermont.

So, from eco-eggs to eco-bags, many companies are rethinking their product packaging. Now, consumers need to support these efforts.