BEAUTYCYCLE, the first beauty take-back and recycling program accepting all brands of beauty packaging at a major retailer, launches today at Nordstrom. Each year, more than 120 billion units of plastic packaging are produced by the beauty industry, but less than nine percent gets recycled. Customers can now bring in their empty beauty product packaging to be recycled at any of Nordstrom's full-line stores or Nordstrom Local service hubs in the continental United States. Through this program, Nordstrom aims to take back 100 tons of hard-to-recycle beauty packaging by 2025 to ensure it's recycled. Many municipal recycling centers do not accept beauty materials and packaging, as they often contain a mix of materials that are not locally recyclable.

LLFlex, a company specialized in packaging materials and industrial laminate solutions, has acquired the assets of Hampden Papers, a paper converter specializing in material such as paper, foil and film. Related: TerraCycle & Nordstrom Partner for BeautyCycle Recycling Program This move serves to expand LLFlex's footprint in packaging niches and offer broad products in several sectors with the expertise of both companies. Hampden Papers is located in Holyoke, Massachusetts and LLFlex in Louisville, Kentucky. Although, with the acquisition, LLFLex has begun production at its new 73,500 square foot manufacturing facility in High Point, North Carolina which will significantly expand LLFlex’s output capacity as well as build upon the consumer packaging capacity and capabilities at LLFlex's Kentucky facility. "Hampden Paper's expertise and focus on quality are a perfect complement to LLFlex’s core strengths and proud heritage of supplying high quality, value-added packaging materials for consumer products," said Kelley Stearman, LLFlex packaging segment director. "We are excited about our expanded portfolio of product offerings and the packaging solutions that our new company will bring to customer." “Working closely with the owners and executives of Hampden Papers has allowed us to create this unique combination of assets, capabilities, expertise and unparalleled commitment to our customers,” said Victor Dixon, CEO of LLFlex. “We are very proud and excited to carry forward the Hampden legacy and history by combining these foundations with the growing portfolio of LLFlex packaging material solutions. The collective customers and broader market will notice immediate benefits by being able to source a wider range of products from one combined company that can better support brand owners, package designers, printers, converters and other related users of laminated and coated materials. Bringing the high-quality Hampden products together with the large scale and robust global supply chain of LLFlex will result in a myriad of benefits for our valued customers.”

Companies create in-store drop-off network in attempt to boost low recycling rate of beauty product packaging. Trenton, New Jersey-based TerraCycle has announced a partnership with fashion retailer Nordstrom designed to help divert beauty product packaging scrap by establishing recycling drop-off points in Nordstrom stores. Through the program, called BeautyCycle, starting Oct. 1 customers can bring beauty packaging scrap to the beauty department at participating Nordstrom locations and dispose of them in TerraCycle Zero Waste Boxes. When full, the boxes will be returned to TerraCycle for processing, and the collected scrap will be cleaned, melted and remolded to make new products, according to TerraCycle. The recycling company says currently less than 2 percent of the 120 billion plastic packaging units produced annually by the beauty industry is being recycled. “Nordstrom and TerraCycle are teaming up to intercept and properly recycle these hard-to-recycle items and ensure that they will never be landfilled, littered or incinerated,” states TerraCycle.

Trenton, New Jersey-based TerraCycle has announced a partnership with fashion retailer Nordstrom designed to help divert beauty product packaging scrap by establishing recycling drop-off points in Nordstrom stores. Through the program, called BeautyCycle, starting Oct. 1 customers can bring beauty packaging scrap to the beauty department at participating Nordstrom locations and dispose of them in TerraCycle Zero Waste Boxes. When full, the boxes will be returned to TerraCycle for processing, and the collected scrap will be cleaned, melted and remolded to make new products, according to TerraCycle. The recycling company says currently less than 2 percent of the 120 billion plastic packaging units produced annually by the beauty industry is being recycled. “Nordstrom and TerraCycle are teaming up to intercept and properly recycle these hard-to-recycle items and ensure that they will never be landfilled, littered or incinerated,” states TerraCycle. “TerraCycle’s mission has always been to ‘Eliminate the Idea of Waste,’ and we’ve proven that solutions do exist for items that may seem difficult to recycle,” says Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of the firm. “Nordstrom not only shares our commitment, but has taken it to the next level by spearheading the Nordstrom BeautyCycle recycling program to reduce the impact of beauty packaging waste on the environment and help pave the way for a greener future.”

• From a news release last week: “International recycling leader TerraCycle, today announced a new partnership with leading fashion retailer Nordstrom, to help divert hard-to-recycle beauty packaging waste from landfills through the Nordstrom BEAUTYCYCLE recycling program. With less than 2 percent of the 120 billion plastic packaging units produced annually by the beauty industry being recycled, Nordstrom and TerraCycle are teaming up to intercept and property recycle these hard-to-recycle items and ensure that they will never be landfilled, littered or incinerated.” The Nordstrom store at Westfarms is participating in the program, and the public is invited to dispose of any brand of beauty packaging waste (think mascara containers, lipstick tubes, all those small jars that otherwise go into the trash) in the TerraCycle Zero Waste Boxes. “When full, the boxes will be returned to TerraCycle for processing and the collected waste will be cleaned, melted and remolded to make new products,” the release states.
• If you’re dropping off empty product containers at Nordstrom, you may want to make one of your final trips to Lord & Taylor, which is closing, according to some sources at the end of the year. They’ve been advertising 40-60% liquidation sales.

TerraCycle and Nordstrom are partnering for the BeautyCycle recycling program that will ensure plastic packaging units from beauty products "will never be landfilled, littered or incinerated." Previously: L'Oreal & TerraCycle Offer Makeup Recycling Bins in UK Stores According to TerraCycle, customers are able to bring any brand of beauty packaging waste to the beauty department at participating Nordstrom locations and dispose of them in the TerraCycle Zero Waste Boxes. Those boxes, once full, will then be returned to TerraCycle where the waste will be cleaned, melted and remolded to make new products. Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle, said: “TerraCycle’s mission has always been to ‘Eliminate the Idea of Waste’ and we’ve proven that solutions do exist for items that may seem difficult to recycle. Nordstrom not only shares our commitment but has taken it to the next level by spearheading the Nordstrom BeautyCycle recycling program to reduce the impact of beauty packaging waste on the environment and help pave the way for a greener future.”

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Creating a circular beauty industry is proving incredibly difficult. The cosmetics and personal care categories face an obstacle course on their quest for sustainability, with hoops to jump through that include toxic ingredients, hazardous waste from common items like nail polish and perfume, plus so, so much plastic. The United Nations estimates that we produce 300 million tons of plastic trash every year (nearly the weight of the entire human population), and beauty packaging is largely to blame thanks to pumps, mirrored compacts, and caps that can’t be processed by curbside recycling programs. Up to this point, much of the innovation in low-impact environmental practices has been led by adaptable indie brands that set the standard for Big Beauty with clever mushroom-based Styrofoam alternatives and compostable materials. Today, Nordstrom’s TerraCycle partnership takes a significant step toward a more circular future with BeautyCycle, a product take-back and recycling initiative accepting a high-low mix of used-up beauty staples that matches your medicine cabinet—rather than the store’s inventory. “Nordstrom is the first major retailer to offer a beauty packaging recycling program for all brands,” says Gemma Lionello, the company’s executive vice president of accessories and beauty. “We committed to take back 100 tons of beauty packaging to ensure it’s recycled by 2025,” she shares of setting Nordstrom’s corporate social responsibility goals for the next five years, which include reducing single-use plastic by 50% and ensuring that 15% of all products are considered sustainable. To make their 200,000-pound promise happen, BeautyCycle will be available in 94 locations, where it will accept beauty packaging purchased from any retailer and made by any brand. It’s a goal that’s quite possible, based on the example that clean beauty retailer Credo set when it offered its take-back program for all beauty products, regardless of where they’re purchased. As of April 2020, Credo announced that after three years of partnering with TerraCycle, 6,300 customers brought “empties” into their stores, resulting in the proper recycling of more than 15 tons of products. To understand the scale of Nordstrom’s BeautyCycle initiative: For every Credo boutique (currently 11 nationwide), there are more than eight Nordstrom locations accepting products, promising to create an even more widespread movement—and conversation—among American beauty enthusiasts.

Recycling beauty products is a challenge, no matter how diligent you try and be. Due to the often intricate nature of bottles (metal springs in pumps, for example), the complications with colored- or darkened-glass, the plethora of plastic, formulas (like nail polish) that simply can't be recycled after use, embedded mirrors, and so on, even if you try your best, what you toss in the recycling bin likely still will end up in the landfill. It's, by all accounts, not a great situation for green beauty lovers. In fact, it's downright disappointing. The issue is there aren't great alternatives: Credo has a recycling program, and many individual brands have started doing refill initiatives in store or online. But this is only a small dent in the bigger picture. There are simply so many beauty products on the market and the fact is most of them can't be properly recycled.