TerraCycle and Venus Will Recycle Any Beauty Product For A Limited Time
Picture where your first razor ended up. Chances are, you envision it strewn among garbage in a faraway landfill, somehow staying fully intact for the unforeseeable future. Your future razors (and other hard-to-recycle cosmetics) deserve a different – and better – fate.
In September 2019, Venus partnered with TerraCycle to create the first razor recycling program in Canada allowing shoppers to recycle their razor packaging from all brands free of charge. Now, and for a limited time, Venus and TerraCycle are extending their recycling program to include all forms of cosmetic waste in addition to razors.
“We are proud to partner with forward-thinking brands, like Venus, to offer consumers a way to divert waste from landfills,” says Tom Szaky, Founder and CEO of TerraCycle in a press release. “#RecycleWithVenus offers Canadians simple steps to live a more sustainable life through small everyday actions.”
The recycling process set out by TerraCycle and Venus is straightforward. First, collect your empty cosmetics and packaging. Then, download and print off a prepaid shipping label from www.venusrecycling.ca to attach to any reusable box. Finally, fill the box with said cosmetics and drop it off at the nearest UPS.
In celebration of launching the program, Venus will donate $25,000 to World Wildlife Canada in support of its initiatives to restore Canadian shorelines and waterways. In addition to this, for every pound of beauty packaging and waste recycled through the program, Venus will donate $1 to World Wildlife Canada: a noble cause to declutter your stash.
Over the last two years, Venus has cut the amount of plastic used to package their razors in half. Seventy percent of their overall packaging is currently recyclable, and the brand is currently looking into ways to make that 100 percent. Notably, the razors are produced in plants that send zero waste to landfill, and according to the brand, they are one of the first brand’s in the industry to do so.
Now that you’ve responsibly recycled your old beauty products (well done!), you can also brush up on refillable cosmetics and an Indigenous-owned zero-waste beauty brand.