Every time I get through a bottle my favorite Givenchy Matissime Velvet foundation, I pick a new one up from Sephora and throw the old one in the trash bin in my bathroom. I usually don’t think twice about the fact that beauty products, much like products found in your kitchen, can sometimes be recycled. I’m not alone in this. In a study found by Unilever, in 2015, 42% of Americans didn’t recycle their bathroom products because they didn’t know if they were eligible for recycling, and 27% didn’t think their bathroom products would actually get recycled. SEE ALSO: So who’s winning the K-Beauty war? The skepticism and confusion aren’t unwarranted. Most recyclables aren’t immediately made into new products. When they’re picked up from your curb, they’re sold to facilities that can recycle them. What’s worse: historically, the U.S. and most other Western countries have sold their recyclables to China. Since January of 2018, China has refused to import waste from other countries for the protection of its population and environment. According to NPR, a lot of the waste which was previously recycled by China is just ending up in landfills, or being sent to countries that don’t have the proper infrastructure to deal with it. Besides the political factors making recycling difficult, the process of recycling beauty products can be tricky. “Bottles for shampoo and detergent are considered ‘high-density polyethylene’ and are generally regarded as safe to recycle at your local facility,” says Sophia Gushee, author of “A to Z of D-Toxing,” told Fashionista. However, nail polish is known for its toxic qualities and harmful chemicals, so disposing of it is not as easy as just tossing it away in the trash or recycling bin. Though beauty brands are putting more focus on sustainability and reducing their ecological footprints, it’s really hard to know how to recycle products that aren’t made out of traditional plastic or aluminum. So what can you do to ensure your beauty products are actually recycled? Read on, below. That’s right, clean them – but it doesn’t have to be squeaky clean. According to Self, if you don’t clean out your containers before recycling them, then they won’t get sorted properly. This means that for all the conscious effort you put in, they’ll just end up getting tossed. Further, every city has different rules when it comes to what materials can be recycled, so just because you could recycle one beauty product in New York, doesn’t mean you can do the same in LA. Check your city’s regulations for that.   You’re in the clear To make matters more complicated, odd-colored materials are difficult to recycle. Meaning, recycling facilities really only have the capability to sort clear, brown, and green plastics, so if your moisturizer comes in a pink plastic container, think twice before tossing it in the recycling bin. Finally, squeezable tubes (like toothpaste), pumps, and droppers (basically every serum ever) should be thrown in the trash can because recycling facilities don’t have the infrastructure to properly recycle them. Moral of the story is this: If you want to be green, you shouldn’t buy containers that come in beautiful colors no matter how beautiful you #shelfies turn out to be. When in doubt The downside to recycling incorrectly is that even though you’re making the effort to separate your items and put them in the recycling bin, they still end up in a landfill. But fret not, if you have a beauty product you have no idea how to recycle, you can send it to a company that does. It’s called Terracycle, a company that hopes to do this all for you. All you have to do is drop off your difficult to recycle waste at a Terracycle drop off point, or mail it to them in one of their zero-waste boxes. Give it away If you’re going to make the effort to recycle, make sure you’re doing it the right way. The whales and turtles – and us fellow humans – will thank you.