Chocolate egg brands cutting down on plastic over Easter

Iranpolymer/Baspar  Brands continue to cut down on virgin plastic to meet consumer demand for sustainable packing. With Easter just around the corner, chocolate eggs packaging is next in line.
Cadbury Australia and Aldi Ireland are amongst the brands replacing plastic in their chocolate eggs.
Aldi Ireland announced a 94% reduction of plastic packaging in one of its best-selling chocolate eggs, Róisín’s Honeycomb Easter Eggs. The plastic is being replaced with cardboard and foil. The organisation has committed to reducing virgin plastic use in its own brand packaging in 40% by 2025. It also aims to incorporate 30% recycled plastic in its packaging by the same date.
“We are eager to take a step towards eliminating plastics from our packaging, in line with our pledge for all of our packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025,” said plastics and packaging manager at Aldi Ireland Jason Carolan.

Down under, in the meantime, Cadbury Australia announced major savings in plastic and cardboard packaging from some Hollow Hunting Eggs and Easter Gift Boxes sold in Australia and New Zealand.
Its Cadbury Hollow Hunting Egg plastic crates will move to 12 and 24 pack cardboard cartons, saving 131,000kg of plastic. Meanwhile, the plastic blister and excess cardboard in some Cadbury Easter Gift Boxes will also be removed, saving over 200,000kg of packaging.
“This is one of the biggest and boldest packaging changes we’ve ever made to our Easter range,” said Ben Wicks, vice president marketing at Mondelez International, Cadbury’s parent company. “The move forms part of Mondelez International’s commitment to make its packaging better for people and planet, through reducing packaging, evolving packaging, and improving recycling systems,” he added.

The move follows a February announcement by Cadbury Australia to halve its virgin plastic use across its chocolate wrapping portfolio which will see Amcor supply it with around 1000 tonnes of post-consumer recycled plastic.
In August 2023, Mondelēz International partnered with Amcor to invest in Licella to fund the construction of one of the first soft plastic chemical recycling facilities in Australia. The new facility in Melbourne is scheduled for completion in 2025 and will initially process around 20,000 tonnes per year of end-of-life plastic, with plans to scale up to 120,000 tonnes per year.
Brands across the world have been announcing plans to replace plastic with paper or cardboard in its packaging. Industry representatives and material experts have criticised the shift for failing to address the root of the waste problem, as it replaces one single-use material with that also has an immense environmental impact and often limited recyclability.

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