WITH Easter approaching, Cotswold District Council is urging residents to reduce waste and avoid buying chocolate eggs which have non-recyclable packaging.

Last year Britons spent £325m on about 80 million Easter eggs, and sales of these chocolate treats are set to climb even higher this time around.

The national waste and resources action programme estimates that 3,000 tonnes of packaging from Easter eggs was discarded in rubbish bins last year – even though many confectioners now only use cardboard and foil packaging which is easy to recycle locally.

While the foil used to protect Easter eggs is easy to recognise, some foil packaging is harder to identify.

One way to find out if an item is foil or metallised plastic film, is to do the ‘scrunch test.’

Simply scrunch the item in your hand – if it remains scrunched it is foil and can be recycled; if it springs back it is probably metallised plastic film and not recyclable.

Common items mistaken for foil include cat food pouches and most crisp packets and therefore should not be placed in the foil recycling banks.

During Easter, residents are reminded that there will be no change to the waste and recycling collection schedules in the Cotswolds. The crews will continue to collect at the kerbside on Good Friday and Easter Monday as usual.