Oh dear! I’m being nagged to go on a diet. Yolanda thinks I’ve put on weight. But in my defence, I have to say, it is all in a good cause.

I have been carrying out some important research. As the season of excess is upon us I wanted to find out what a green-living, eco-loving dog like me can eat, snack-wise, while watching The X-Factor Final and the Queen’s Christmas message without getting the blues about excess packaging.

Today, I’ve decided that I love Smarties. They come in a groovy hexagonal box made of cardboard which is 100% recyclable. And what’s more, all Smarties are completely yummy. There are no yukky ones in there that will languish in the packet and get thrown away.

Do you have a favourite colour of Smarty? I know you probably think mine would be green. But, just to surprise you, I don’t mind sharing the fact that my absolute favourites are the blue ones.

Are you a sweetie lover?

I love sweeties. All kinds of sweeties. But I promised Yolanda that I was going to try to stick to eating sweeties that come in recyclable packaging.

So, that means I need to do a bit of research. What sweeties can I still eat?

I came across a box of Quality Street in Mr Smith’s Bin the other day. Couldn’t believe my luck, but there were still three sweeties in there (and a bit of orange peel and a banana skin – you have to take the rough with the smooth!). I put the orange peel and the banana skin on my compost heap. I hope by this time next year it will be fertilising my garden. Then I set about doing some serious research. The three sweeties were all blue ones. Clearly nobody in Mr Smith’s house likes the blue ones, but luckily for me they’re my favourites.

As I unwrapped sweetie number one – step one in my research is to check that I like them – I noticed the writing on the side of the box.

Did you know that you can separate the wrappers and put the foil bit into your recycling box like you would a drinks can? The outer wrapper can go in your compost bin. How cool is that?

The instructions for how to dispose of the cardboard box say: ‘Remove the window from the empty carton and put the window bit in the bin. The card can then be quickly and easily recycled. Simply put it in your local recycling bank or kerb-side recycling box.’

It is great that most of the packaging is recyclable or compostable. It is great that they tell you that on the box. But why do they bother with the window? Couldn’t they find a way to make that recyclable too?