Going Green: Easter celebrations with eco-friendly money-saving tips

Green Easter with eco-friendly Easter eggs (photo: adobe)

Q: How do I have an eco-friendly Easter?

A :You can easily green up your Easter celebrations.

You’ll have just as much fun – and save money!

Here are some ideas ...

Chocolate eggs

When buying chocolate eggs, take a good look at the packaging.

Try to avoid hard plastic eggs or toys.Some companies have made an effort to make their packaging more eco-friendly – like British brand Montezuma.

Even its glues and tape are sustainable.

When it comes to the contents, try and opt for Fairtrade or Rainforest Alliance certified chocolate, because the cocoa’s farmed using methods that don’t cause deforestation.

Look on the Fairtrade website for more information.

Good value options include Aldi’s Choco Changer Salted Caramel Egg (£3.99), Lidl’s Deluxe Salted Caramel Premium Egg (£3.99) and the Co-op’s Irresistible Fair Trade Hot Cross Bun Egg (£6).

Look out too for the first ever plant-based – and ultra-eco-friendly – crème egg!

Made with oat milk, it’s £5 for five eggs from Mummy Meegz – a small company founded by a 74-year-old Yorkshire café owner.

Easter lunch

Spring lambs are super cute and many people think they’re also super tasty.

But could you go meat-free for your Easter Sunday lunch?

It’d significantly reduce your meal’s carbon footprint – and save you money!

The BBC has a great range of meat-free Easter lunch main course recipes online, including a spring veggie casserole with herb dumplings.

If you want to really green your lunch, you could make it plant-based.

The Veganuary website has great Easter recipes, including shepherd’s pie and hot cross buns.

Easter egg hunt

Having an eco-friendly Easter egg hunt is all about getting crafty.

If you want to use real eggs, try to buy them from a local farmer and colour them using natural dyes, so you can compost the shells or put them in your food waste bin.

Lots of websites have info on how to make dyes from kitchen scraps, like cabbage heads, onion skins and beetroot peelings, including Martha Stewart’s. It’s a great holiday activity with kids!

If you prefer to use reusable ‘eggs’ that you can fill with chocolate treats, please try to avoid the plastic ones. You can now buy hollow wooden eggs, which children can paint and use again next year. Etsy is a good place to find such things.

Great outdoors

As the weather improves, now’s the time to get your family out into the countryside. Switch off those games consoles, smartphones and computers and go for a long walk. It’s free and great for everyone’s health and wellbeing.

Celebrity spot

Feargal Sharkey once sang Teenage Kicks.

Fergal Sharkey campaigns against river pollution by farms and water companies (photo: MJ Kim/Getty Images)

These days he is more concerned with sewage spills.

Chairman of England’s oldest fly-fishing club, the 63 year-old campaigns against river pollution by farms and water companies. He has a battle on his hands.

Every English river is polluted. In Wales, 56 percent of rivers don’t meet standards.

In Scotland conservationists talk about introducing river ‘sewage police’. More than seven million tonnes of sewage spill annually into Sharkey’s native Northern Ireland waterways.

Green swap

Swap dairy milk latte for oat milk.

Try making latte with oat milk (photo: adobe)

In terms of greenhouse gases, 200 millilitre glass of cow’s milk creates around 0.6 kilograms of carbon dioxide.

Same amount of oat milk produces 0.18 kg. A dairy latte’s carbon footprint is more than three times bigger.

Ever wondered ... where does my recycling go?

The UK generates 222.2 million tonnes of waste each year.

It’s all got to go somewhere.

But where?

How much of our rubbish is recycled?

Not as much as it should be!