The ugly truth about beauty products is that disposing of the detritus they create isn’t easy. For one thing, mascara tubes, foundation sponges and anything else that could be contaminated by microbes or bacteria is actually considered a biohazard, which means you shouldn’t even throw it in the regular garbage.   Beyond that, most cosmetic containers can’t be recycled, even if they’re made of plastic or glass. Blue bin guidelines generally “do not include any material that has liquids, and that can contaminate other materials in the bin,” says Ernel Simpson, a V.P. at TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based company that has branded itself the go-to for all things “unrecyclable.”   Luckily, TerraCycle offers a few beauty-disposal options. Empties from its partners—Burt’s Bees, Bausch + Lomb, DECIEM, eos, Gillette, Tom’s of Maine and Weleda—can be dropped off at those stores, or sent directly to the recycling company for free.         Devotees of other brands can purchase a Zero Waste Box, fill it up with cleaned out lotion bottles and lipgloss tubes, and send it over to the company for recycling. (There are also Zero Waste boxes for everything from plastic snack packaging to cigarette butts and used chewing gum.)   Here, a few other companies trying to help green your cosmetic disposal routine.       The beauty giant was thinking about recycling well before it was trendy. Its Back-to-M.A.C. program dates back to the 1980s: customers who bring in six empty M.A.C. makeup containers receive a free standard lipstick, lipgloss or small eyeshadow. The brand says it reuses more than 100,000 pounds of material in the U.S. and Canada each year, and anything that cannot be reused is incinerated at waste-to-energy facilities.         A partnership with TerraCycle makes L’Occitane a convenient drop-off hub: customers who bring in empty beauty containers from any brand receive 10 percent off during their store visit. The brand has also pledged that every single one of its bottles will be made of 100 per cent recycled plastic by 2025.       The eco-conscious company’s goal is to get naked—a bunch of its products, from shampoo to body lotion, are sold entirely packaging-free. Last year, customers bought two million shampoo bars, keeping millions of plastic bottles out of landfills or the ocean. Liquid products come in the brand’s signature black pots, made from 100 per cent recycled plastic. Customers who return five empty pots get a free face mask.         Another TerraCycle partner, the Body Shop’s Return. Recycle. Repeat. program collects empty packaging from any brand for recycling at all of its Canadian locations (excluding products marked flammable or hazardous, such as perfumes). Bonus: club members get $10 worth of points when they bring back five Body Shop brand containers. It also launched a program last May to buy plastic waste collected in Bengaluru, India, which is recycled into shampoo and conditioner bottles.         Everyone from B.C. to Manitoba can take advantage of this Western chain’s extensive recycling program, available at all of its stores. Makeup isn’t accepted, but small beauty appliances such as hair dryers and curling irons are, as is most packaging, like the hard plastic and Styrofoam that cradles products bought online, as well as batteries and lightbulbs. In the last 10 years, the Canadian retailer has recycled more than 113 million pounds of waste—enough to fill two container ships.  

Consumers see beyond the cliché when it comes sustainability, according to Echo Brand Design's Jenny Cook. The consumer of 2020 wants to buy sustainable beauty products, and they see beyond the cliché of artisanal, organically sourced potions, lovingly wrapped in untainted craft paper. For them, sustainability goes deeper than packaging; it is about innovation for genuine impact. Beauty brands, from the freshest start-up to the largest global corporate, recognize this. They want to respond to this rising consumer demand, and they want to mitigate their impact. The challenge for many is knowing where to get started. Here we offer seven ideas. We hope they provoke thought, inspire action and help beauty brands join the movement towards a more sustainable future. #1: Personalize Formulas How many of us have despaired at our ‘Foundation Graveyards’ – off the shelf formulas sitting unused because they didn’t match skin tone or disagreed with skin type? In response to this, a growing number of forward-thinking beauty brands are offering personalized formulations. Look at Lancôme in-store custom-made foundation service which matches skin and blends the formula into a personalized bottle. Allél goes even further, matching its customers’ DNA profiles to specific products. Personalization of products will reduce waste, as well as transport and storage costs. It also delivers a far better product and experience to the customer. Looking ahead, we expect to see this reach the mainstream, with personalization becoming a standard beauty concept, primarily led by direct-to-consumer brands collecting real-time data to adapt formulas. #2: From Natural to Bio Design For too long people have fetishized the notion of organic. Today, there is a growing recognition of the burden resource-intensive botanicals like vanilla and rose oil place on both the planet and the people who farm them. Synthetic formulas offer a more environmentally friendly approach with lower carbon footprint. They are the future. The remarkable work being done by Gingko Bio Works shows just what will be possible in this future. Through collaborations with a paleogenomics lab, a smell researcher, a multidisciplinary artist, and cutting-edge synthetic biology it is resurrecting scents that have been extinct for up to 200 years. In the years ahead consumer thinking in this area will shift as people begin the recognize that synthetic is more resource efficient whilst also opening up a new spectrum of colors and scents. The opportunity now is for beauty brands to lead the way in this. #3: Tomorrow’s Packaging Materials While plastic and glass are both strong, durable and recyclable, they have problems: glass is heavy, and only 50% of bathroom waste is recycled, compared to 90% in the kitchen. With the World Economic Forum predicting that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean, this is a major issue. The beauty sector is responding. L’Occitane now offers its products in an Eco Refill range that uses 90% less plastic compared to its standard size products. Ecologic transports its bottles as shells. Chanel has invested in the firm Sulapac. Made from wood and natural biopolymers, Sulapac material is industrially compostable, and they are working towards recycling via plastic waste streams. Crucially, these packaging alternatives look desirable. While they switch glass and plastic for locally abundant materials there is no compromise on how they look and feel. #4: The Naked Store We have been trained to equate heavy, complex packaging with quality. At its most extreme this is the unboxing phenomenon. Today’s consumer is increasingly taking a different approach. For them quality is delivered not through harmful packaging but through a digital and real life brand world. Lush has long been associated with a uniquely multi-sensorial approach to merchandising which encourages consumer interaction with a variety of smells, colors and textures around the store. The experience is the product. When it created a video to explain its naked shampoo bars, pointing out that it could replace the 552 million shampoo bottles we throw out annually, the video went viral and Lush sold 12,000 shampoo bars in just two days. #5: Go Waterless With water making up around 70% of most beauty products, there is significant potential to reduce water use as well as transport and storage costs by developing water-free alternatives. L'Oréal has pledged to reduce its water consumption by 60% per unit of finished product by 2020. Brands like EC30 are showing how it can be done: you add water to its single dose drops and they become one of eight cleaning products from shampoo to conditioner, handwash, even laundry detergent. This visual alchemy can help ingredients evoke a sense of activeness and enhanced freshness. People enjoy being there in the final act of creation. The opportunity is for beauty brands to engender the same sensorial rituals. #6: Refill Packs for Life With waste such a major issue in the beauty industry, more and more brands are finding innovative ways to offer refillable packs that customers can keep for life. Crucially, this model allows design teams to invest more heavily in these packs for life, so they are more desirable than their disposable predecessors. Loop is leading the way here. It delivers beauty products in premium durable packaging which is returned and refilled. The customer never owns the packaging. As the company describes itself: ‘Like a milkman, just for beauty’. Buy one Lancôme Absolute L’Extrait reusable jar and two refills, and you achieve a 58% weight reduction compared to three conventional products. Just as people now visit shops with their own bags in a way that would have seemed unthinkable a decade ago, soon they will visit with their collection of stylish refill jars. #7: Nudge People Towards Sustainable Disposal Finally, there is disposal. Lush has always been ahead of the game in sustainability and has a well-established closed-loop recycling scheme with its black pots which ‘could have more lives than a cat.’ Customers who return these pots are rewarded with a free face mask.  Similarly, The Body Shop is collaborating with TerraCycle to encourage customers to bring back empty products from any brand to receive a discount. There is huge potential in the beauty industry to innovate towards sustainable products and experiences. It’s a journey, and the most forward-thinking brands in this space are already finding ways to nudge consumers in the right direction. In the years ahead they will reap the benefits not only in sales, but also in a cleaner, greener planet for future generations.

The Body SHop has spent two years building a solid supply chainwith Plastics for Change in India to source Fair Trade recycled plastic and plans to integrate these materials across its global recycled plastics portfoolio within three years.

A large number of global consumer companies have launched an initiative to reduce waste from packaging. Through the Loop service, companies like Unilever, Nestle and Coca Cola are planning to offer reusable packaging that is collected after use and then refilled and reused. Photo: Walk Some of the world's largest consumer companies have joined forces with the recycling company TerraCycle to launch a global shopping system for reusable packaging. The shopping system Loop has been developed to reduce the world's dependence on disposable plastic by offering circular solutions for consumer products. Through Loop, companies plan to offer consumers reusable packaging that is collected after use and then cleaned, refilled and reused. Loop was launched during the World Economic Forum's Davos Summit. Over 20 global consumer companies have been involved in financing Loop, including Procter & Gamle, Nestle, Unilever, Pepsi, Coca Cola and Body Shop. Food chains such as British Tesco and the logistics company UPS also participate in the initiative. "Loop is a long-awaited innovation that challenges companies to take a new grip on our value chains and integrate reusable product packaging as part of our work to reduce waste," says Laurent Freixe, CEO of Nestlé in the US, in a comment. According to the life cycle analyzes that Loop has carried out together with its partners, the environmental benefits of the long-lasting products show that they are better than for disposable packaging, while at the same time the waste is reduced. Loop will be launched in the spring in France and the Northeast USA. The service is expected to be launched in more countries in 2019 and 2020. A spokesperson from Loop tells Current Sustainability that so far there are plans to launch the service in the UK, Canada and Tokyo, but more markets are expected to be in the future.