Quibans 86: Recycling Ferrero Rocher

This is interesting because it contains an error, a lack of clarity and something misleading.  Perfect for a Quibans!

Article from the Daily Telegraph:

Ferrero Rocher shamed as Christmas chocolates with the least recyclable packaging 

12 DECEMBER 2018 

Ferrero Rocher has been named and shamed as the Christmas chocolate box with the least recyclable packaging. 

The vast majority (89 per cent) of the packaging in a 359g Ferrero Rocher Collection box may be destined for landfill as it is made from non-recyclable plastic and foil, a study by consumer group Which? found.

By contrast the most recyclable chocolate boxes were Waitrose Christmas Chocolate Favourites 240g which is 96.3 per cent recyclable) Cadbury's Milk Tray, which is 92.5 per cent easily recyclable. The second least recyclable packaging was for Marks & Spencer's The Big One Selection 600g, which is 71.4 per cent recyclable. 

In addition Which? analysed chocolate boxes for their packaging to chocolate weight ratio, and found boxes of Ferrero Rocher Collections had by far the highest. 

Nearly half of the weight of a 359g Ferrero Rocher Collection box is made up of packaging (42.4 per cent), with the rest constituting (67.6 per cent) the chocolates themselves, it found.  

The boxes with the highest proportion of chocolate weight were Marks & Spencer's The Big One Selection 600g (just 8.5 per cent packaging), and Lindt Lindor Assorted Mix 384g (just 11.5 per cent packaging), the study showed.  

Questions:

1)      What is the error?

2)      The lack of clarity is that ‘359g’ is the weight of the chocolate (and nuts, etc) in the box.  The packaging weighs more on top of that.  42.4% of the total is the packaging, so what is the weight of packaging?

3)      The misleading part is that an implication of the two mentions of M&S is not followed up.  What is going on there?

(Answers are below.)

Further info:

Here are screenshots of the tables from the Which? report:

Here it is as a single table (to be pasted into Excel?)

Chocolate	Official weight (g)	Weight in packaging (g)	Packaging weight (g)	Percentage packaging	Percentage easily recyclable
Cadbury's Heroes	660	808	144	17.80%	88.90%
Cadbury's Milk Tray	360	470	106	22.60%	92.50%
Cadbury's Roses	660	810	144	17.80%	90.30%
Chocolate Treats By Sainsburys	650	806	154	19.10%	88.30%
Ferrero Rocher Collection	359	642	272	42.40%	11%
Lindt Lindor Assorted Mix	337	384	44	11.50%	90.90%
Marks & Spencer The Big One Selection	600	662	56	8.50%	71.40%
Mars Celebrations	650	812	150	18.50%	90.70%
Mars Malteaser Teasers	275	364	70	19.20%	88.60%
Morrisons Mega Mix	1050	1216	162	13.30%	81.50%
Nestle Quality Street	720	846	130	15.40%	83.10%
Thorntons Continental Selection	284	408	120	29.40%	86.70%
Waitrose Christmas Chocolate Favourites	240	356	108	30.30%	96.30%

Additional questions:

4) What should happen when you add up the Official Weight and the Packaging Weight columns?
5) Do any of them mis-state the amount of chocolate they contain?
6) Work out the percentage of the Total Weight for each product that cannot be recycled. How does M&S compare?

Answers:

1)      The error is that 42.4% plus 67.6% doesn’t equal 100% (and it should).  The former figure is correct (as seen in the Which? tables).

2)      The chocolate in the Rochers are 57.6%, so when we divide 359g by 0.576 we get the total weight (623g) and this leads to a packaging weight of 264g.  This doesn’t agree with the figures from Which? because there is slightly over 359g of choc.

3)      M&S may have the second-least recyclable packaging, but there is much less of it, so maybe they have cut down on the packaging overall (which seems like a good thing: just because something is ‘recyclable’ doesn’t mean everyone will recycle it!).

4)      You should get the ‘Weight in packaging’ column. 

5)      Most of them give us slightly more chocolate than advertised, with only Nestle falling under (but that is presumably only on the single box that Which? tested).

6)      I used Excel to work this out.  38% of the weight of the in-package Ferrero Rocher is non-recyclable, but only 2% of the M&S.  The median was 2%.

Sources:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/12/ferrero-rocher-shamed-christmas-chocolates-least-recyclable/
https://www.which.co.uk/news/2018/12/the-truth-about-christmas-chocolate-packaging/