Green Thing Blog

(Image: Diane Gilleland)

It's Easter and who doesn't like an excuse to eat chocolate, see cute fluffy chickens and adorable bunny rabbits all around the place? It's also a great time to get your craft on and practice those All-Consuming skills.

Beautiful baskets: From your scraps of pretty paper, you could weave a lovely easter basket. Or transform those carriers you get in the supermarket that hold bottles into another beautiful basket? Or simply give your candle votives a lift for the day.

(Image: BBCgoodfood)

Homemade egg: It is a great idea to make your own chocolate egg. Although you will need a special mould to make the two sides but you could fashion a mould out of last years easter egg packaging. A lot of the eggs you buy in the supermarket have an egg shaped protective layer around the chocolate to prevent it from breaking, so save any you get this year and next year you can make your own and forget about excessive packaging. 

(Image: Invitingsmiles)

Decorate your eggs: Of course decorating eggs is an Easter tradition you don't want to miss out on. All you need to do is simply hard boil your eggs and decorate how ever you like and with what ever you like. The possibilities are endless!

(Image: EmilyAClarke)

Chain it up: Make your home look pretty with some homemade paperchains. Grab some leftover paper, cut into long ribbons and glue them into loops like in the picture above. It's like floral Christmas. If you have paint samples lying around then cut them into egg shapes to make a really great garland. Or if you want something a bit more advanced, why not give this a go?

(Image: Makesandtake)

Reclaim those cans, cartons and containers: Upcycle any old containers, like your tin of beans, into a bunny holder for whatever you like. You could hide some sweets in it as part of your Easter Egg hunt or replant your herbs for a jollier windowsill.

(Image: Happyclippings)

Bling up your bottles: If you have some plastic bottles in your recycling bin why not grab 'em and make these cute sweet holders and put a smile on someone's face.

(Image: Poppytalk)

Finally, send some one a secret message in an egg. When baking or cooking don't crack your egg but drain the yolk out and use it as a vessel to surprise someone like an adorable Easter fortune cookie.

Above all, we hope you're as eggcited as we are about this weekend. Have an eggsellent break and go easy on the chocolate stuff.

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Egg shells are famed for being quite delicate. Whilst they might hold an egg rather brilliantly, you wouldn't use them to transport shampoo, build a car or hold your lunch. And don't even think about using them to make a chair.

But where you and I see plain old egg shells, Leicester University saw a potential alternative to plastic. Eggy plastic. Sounds ridiculous, turns out to be eggsellent.

When crushed up and broken down, these gritty shells can be used to bulk up regular plastic meaning less crude oil is needed in manufacturing. The hope is that one day, products containing eggs will be packaged in egg shell plastic to make the perfect eggy package.

On top of that, the proteins found in these hen-made packages might also be able to be eggstracted and used in pharmaceutical and biomedical industries.

And that's not all.

All these waste egg products turned plastic were destined for the land. Given that one company in the UK alone sends 480 tonnes of shells to the dump each year and spend a whopping £30,000 to do so, this seems like an eggstremely cost effective and sustainable solution all round.

Less waste in our landfills and less oil in our plastics.

It sounds like a cracking idea.

P.S. Think this is weird? Then check out this plastic made from fish scales.

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