You can recycle Easter Egg foil, BUT have you thought about repurposing or reusing it? Here are three simple Easter craft ideas to upcycle your chocolate wrappers and keep the kids busy.
To effectively recycle the foil from Easter eggs, or anything else for that matter, it must be clean and rolled into a ball about fist size to enable it to be picked up through the recycling sorting process. There is no need to wash foil from chocolate eggs, but if you're recycling cooking foil, remove as much food and grease as you can.
Easter eggs are almost always covered in pretty, shiny foil and there are ways to reuse it rather than recycle (or worse, throw it away!!). Aluminium foil is a valuable resource so eventually, these will go to recycling.
These require very little effort, and are easy enough for most kids to do without supervision, making it a fun activity to do over the Easter long weekend or in the weeks following.
Easter Foil Craft Idea #1: Revamp Your Magnets
I always rip the magnets of real estate calendars and other outdated junk, and keep them on the fridge to use rather than throw them away.
But they often look really ugly!! Here's what some of ours looked like.
(Now is probably a good time to mention that if you have babies or toddlers in the house, this might be one you want to skip as magnets can cause a lot of problems if swallowed and might look very appealing to eat if covered in pretty foil!)
Covering them with some left over foil from Easter is simple and a fabulous way to use smaller pieces that may have ripped during the excitement.
All you need to do is cut the foil to roughly suit the shape, leaving a little extra so you can wrap it slightly around the back. You can apply a small amount of glue if needed but I found these stayed on well.
I actually like the wrinkled foil look, but if you want a more polished surface, just flatten out the foil more, iron it....or stop your kids screwing their Easter egg wrappers it into a ball.
Easter Foil Craft Idea #2: Pretty Pen Holder
Wrapping beautiful foil around aluminium food tins makes a handy pen, pencil or scissors holder. (Make sure they are empty and rinsed of food first!).
I used a standard soup sized can, but you can do this with any size you have around the house.
First, wrap foil around the tin leaving some overhang at both the top and bottom ends. Use a small piece of sticky tape to secure the start and finish point around the tin, or a dab of craft glue.
Next, fold the bottom edges moulding the foil to the tin, no need to stick down.
Now, fold the top edges in.
This was a ring pull can so although the edges aren't sharp, it's possible for little hands to get scratched.
For this reason, I kept most of the extra foil at the top and moulded it firmly around the inner edge so that it couldn't be felt. I do have a can opener that leaves no sharp edges and this should be done if the item is going to be used by little ones.
.....And add your pens, crayons or other items for a cute storage pot.
Last but certainly my favourite!!...
Easter Foil Craft Idea #3: DIY Candle Holders
Using the same technique above, I saved the gold and bronze Easter Egg foil, as I wanted them to look a little classier than the pen holder that will probably end up being for crayons.
As we kept Easter gift giving to a minimum this year, I didn't have a big range of foil to choose from!
The main difference between this and the pen holder is that I covered the bottom of the tin with the foil too. This is perfect for holding tea light candles or those with a wide base. For longer, thinner candles, turn them the other way and pop the candle into the tin.
I love that something so pretty can be made from items that usually end up as waste. This is currently sitting on our mantle piece and I love looking at it. Using your imagination and channelling your inner Martha Stewart, these could be turned into gorgeous centre pieces for the dinner table.
Eventually, these will head to the recycling bin, but for now, we are enjoying admiring our trash.
Did you recycle or repurpose your Easter egg foil?