When you think of what can be recycled, aluminum cans and newspapers probably come to mind first. But don’t forget about granola bar wrappers, plastic cups, and chip bags.   That garbage can find a second life too, thanks to a group of Bloomington-Normal volunteers who sort, box up, and ship hard-to-recycle items to TerraCycle. They’ve diverted around 100,000 items from the landfill over the past two years—a track record that recently earned those volunteers the Ecology Action Center’s 2019 McLean County Recycling and Waste Reduction Award.   “I found (the award) very surprising,” said TerraCycle volunteer Amie Keeton. “It was nice to have our efforts recognized. And it’s nice to have our name out there and what we’re doing a little bit more.”   You might be surprised at what Bloomington-Normal’s TerraCycle team can accept:  

• Plastic hairspray bottles
• Burt’s Bee products
• Chip or snack bags
• Toothpaste tubes and caps
• Brita or PUR pitches and filters

    See a full list of what they accept. Items can be dropped off 24/7 at St. Luke Union Church in Bloomington (garbage in the back) or at Common Ground Grocery. TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based company with $31.8 million in revenue last year, is one answer to the flood of plastic that comes into our homes but can’t necessarily go out with our weekly curbside single-stream recycling. For years, the U.S. sent much of that plastic trash to China. But China in 2018 cut back almost all imports of trash. A huge market dried up.   TerraCycle, founded in 2001, takes in sorted plastic junk from individuals and volunteer teams (like Bloomington’s) from all over the country. It can turn that plastic into new products, like recycled plastic resin or plastic lumber. Those sending in plastic can earn TerraCycle “points” which are redeemable for charitable gifts, TerraCycle products, or a donation to a school or nonprofit.   St. Luke’s missions committee decides where to donate the local TerraCycle proceeds, Keeton said. So far, the beneficiaries have included the Community Health Care Clinic, Project Oz, and Big Brothers, Big Sisters, and other nonprofits.   TerraCycle has partnered with several big brands that fund its free recycling programs. The company that owns the Solo plastic cup brand, for example, supports a free recycling program for rigid #6 plastic cups. (That’s one of the items that Bloomington-Normal’s group collects.)   “That’s where TerraCycle fits in,” said Melanie Ziomek, another Bloomington volunteer. “Maybe it’s making the businesses more responsible for what they create. Because there’s more to it than putting a stamp on it that says it’s recyclable. Because in certain communities, you can’t.”   It’s not easy work. Janet Guaderrama is the local TerraCycle sorter-in-chief, putting in at least four or five hours a week. The goal is to label and store everything until they “make weight” and have enough of a given item—like granola bar wrappers or plastic cups—to ship off to TerraCycle.   “Our struggles are always trying to find big enough boxes,” Ziomek said. “We’ve gotten really creative. We’ll put four boxes on top of each other and tape them all together, just so we can fit 40 pounds of chip bags in there."   Ziomek started recycling like this in 2011 out of her garage, later expanding and teaming up with the other TerraCycle volunteers. Her inspiration: She was troubled by how much garbage her family was throwing out at home, and she felt there had to be something they could do to reduce their waste.   “I started to research online, and I found TerraCycle. And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, all these things my home ends up throwing away, I can do this,’” Ziomek said.

What is “clean beauty”? And for that matter, green beauty, eco-friendly beauty, and natural beauty? In this monthly column, clean beauty expert Jessica Yarbrough explores the ins and out of no-waste and low-waste beauty, reports on the products and ingredients to look out for, and answers all the most pressing questions surrounding this topic.     There are perks to being a beauty editor, and one of them is free beauty products. So many free beauty products. More free beauty products than one person could want or need or even use. When the product-filled packages first appeared on my doorstep—about a year and a half ago, just after “Beauty Editor” appeared in my email signature—I felt like I had it all: I had found my passion, was being paid to write about it, and was getting dozens (upon dozens) of mists, masks, and more to test on a weekly basis.   But that perk soon presented a problem. The boxes and bubble wrap and bottles piled up, first on my bathroom counter, then in a hallway closet, then in a permanent donation bin by the front door.  I had it all, sure—but it was all too much.   As that pile grew, it changed the way I saw the beauty industry. Every article I read (“17 Amazon Beauty Products You Need Right Now!”) or Instagram shelfie I “liked” made me wonder: How much waste came from this piece of content? And not just from the editors and influencers creating said content, either—but from those consuming it?   I had found a new passion.   Over the past year, I’ve stopped focusing so much on beauty products and started focusing on the beauty industry—particularly its impact on the planet, which is very big, to say the least. Did you know that beauty brands produce about 77 billion units of plastic packaging per year, and over 70 percent of that ends up in landfills? Or that packaging accounts for 40 percent of the world’s plastic waste? In major cities, it’s estimated that 38 percent of the VOC emissions in air pollution comes from the spritzing and slathering of hairspray and serum and perfume. 7.6 billion pounds of makeup wipes are sent to landfills every year—and that’s just makeup wipes. I mean, imagine the environmental impact of our collective skin care, hair care, body care, and makeup routines!   I couldn’t justify adding to that garbage patch of products anymore, so I made a conscious effort to reduce my own environmental impact: I gave all those gently used lipsticks and lotions to friends and family who would use them, donated the unopened boxes to my local women’s shelter, and pared back my daily regimen to just the basics. (Oh, and I stopped accepting free press samples—which has been the most freeing experience of my adult life.)   This year, I’m resolving to take it one step further by adopting a zero-waste beauty routine.  

Zero-waste means producing zero trash. Nothing gets tossed in the garbage can, nothing goes to a landfill. Everything gets recycled or composted.

  That’s a pretty tough standard to meet, especially in the world of plastic palettes and squeezy shampoo bottles.   “Beauty was and continues to be one of the hardest areas for me,” Lauren Singer, the founder and CEO of Package Free and blogger behind Trash Is For Tossers, tells HelloGiggles of starting her zero waste journey. “My personal care products—toothpaste, face wash, moisturizer—were packaged in and then sold in huge amounts of plastic. Not only that, their ingredients were composed of synthetic materials of petrochemical origin. I was swimming in plastic.”   That said, Singer’s doing pretty well these days: All of the trash she’s generated over the past five years fits inside one 16-ounce mason jar. Yup, seriously. This is why I hit her up for advice on the whole not-contributing-to-the-demise-of-the-planet thing.  

The first step: Use less.

You’re probably familiar with the motto “reduce, reuse, recycle”—but there’s another “R” word that belongs at the top of that list, and it’s “refuse.” In other words: Don’t buy things you don’t need.   “I think marketing does a really good job at making us feel ugly, like we need a million products to look and feel our best,” Singer says. “I realized, I don’t need a million products to look and feel my best—I found two that actually work really well.” Her zero-waste skin care routine consists of a Tea Tree Charcoal Facial Bar Soap (“I use a washcloth with that instead of an exfoliant”) and Juniper Carrot Seed Face Oil, both from sustainable beauty brand Meow Meow Tweet.           Unexpected bonus: Fewer products mean less stress for your skin barrier and healthier skin. Singer’s almost-unreal radiance can attest to that, but so can some of the year’s biggest skin care trends: “skin fasting,” “skip-care,” and the fall of exfoliation.   Multitasking makeup products fit into this less-is-more model, too. “Rose-Marie Swift’s RMS Beauty was the first brand to tackle multi-use with its Lip2Cheek,” Singer says. “She was pioneering in that, I’d say.” RMS Beauty still stands out in the space thanks to its glass (read: not plastic!) packaging, but today, there are plenty of other two-in-ones to choose from, including versions from Tata Harper, Alleyoop, and (M)anasi7.  

Swapping out single-use products can make a major impact.

  The easiest way to lower your environmental impact is to replace your single-use beauty products—things you use once and throw away, like makeup wipes, exfoliating pads, sheets masks, and cotton swabs—with sustainable alternatives. Like, you know, a washcloth (the OG makeup wipe).   I love Silvon’s face towels, which are threaded with antimicrobial silver to keep bacteria from building up. Face masks that come in glass jars, like OSEA’s White Algae Mask, are considerably more eco-friendly than one-and-done sheet masks; and Singer even sells reusable “cotton swabs” at Package Free. (They come in cases made from biodegradable corn, naturally.)  

It’s all about the packaging.

  Remember those 77 billion units of plastic packaging per year, which help make up 40 percent of the world’s total waste? Yeah, the goal of zero waste beauty is to avoid them completely.   “The best thing is no packaging,” Singer says, which sounds obvious and also impossible. There are ways to side-step all that pesky plastic, though. Package Free’s physical locations in New York City offer bulk “fill stations” for oils, deodorants, dry shampoo, and toothpaste, among other things. Customers simply bring their own containers to fill and voila! Package-free beauty. Clean beauty brand Follain, Los Angeles’ Wild Terra, and Savannah’s Salacia Salts all offer similar BYOMJ (Bring Your Own Mason Jar) stations.   “After that, the best option would be paper packaging—but making sure the paper is 100 percent recyclable,” Singer says. “Even a post-consumer recycled paper would be talking that once step further.” Check out Meow Meow Tweet’s shampoo and conditioner bars or Aether Beauty’s eyeshadow palettes to get in on that paper-packaged goodness.     “Then there’s aluminum or steel, which would be the next best option,” according to Singer.  Glass falls into this category as well. These materials are infinitely recyclable, so “they usually contain a huge percentage of recycled material already.” (Recycled plastic degrades in quality over time, and eventually can’t be recycled anymore, which is partly why it’s so darn damaging to the earth.) Plain Products and True Botanicals have your hair care needs covered; both sell shampoo and conditioner in aluminum bottles. For body care, look no further than C & The Moon and Bathing Culture, which package their products in good-for-the-environment glass.   Refillable packaging is another eco-option. “I wear a bronzer and blush from Kjaer Weis,” shares Singer, since the (gorgeous) metal cases are refillable—although, at $58 and $56 a piece, they’re also pretty costly. Over time, however, “it’s actually cheaper to refill, because you’re not paying a premium for packaging every time,” explains the zero waste advocate. (Each Kjaer Weiss refill costs $32.) Alas, refillable options, including Singer’s go-to concealer from Alma Pure, don’t quite count as “zero-waste” yet because the product refills themselves are typically housed in plastic. “This is the one area I think there’s so much room for improvement,” she says. “I haven’t found one brand that seems perfect.”   “Biodegradable” or “compostable” materials are great, too… but only if you actually, well, compost them.   “If there’s anything to be reiterated over and over and over again, it’s this: Don’t send anything that can break down or is biodegradable to a landfill,” Singer says. Many, many studies have shown that biodegradable materials very rarely biodegrade in landfills; they don’t offer enough oxygen, light, or soil to break down plant-based fibers. Instead, these materials should be composted. And if you don’t compost? “Don’t consume biodegradable products,” states Singer. (Sadly, this means Almay’s well-intentioned Biodegradable Longwear Makeup Remover Cleansing Towelettes are a no-go. The directions inexplicably instruct users to “dispose of wipes in trash bin” after use, negating that buzzy “biodegradable” label.)  

Are your ingredients eco-friendly?

  A lot of focus is (rightfully) placed on packaging, but flip that package over and you’ll spy the sneakiest waste products of all: petrochemicals.   Petrochemicals are substances derived from petroleum and natural gas, just like plastics and diesel fuel—and cosmetics are full of ‘em. To name a few: paraffin wax, mineral oil, toluene, benzene, and any ingredient preceded by butyl-, PEG-, or propyl- (like propylene glycol). These are typically low-cost byproducts of the petroleum industry, so while they don’t actively generate waste, zero-waste proponents like Singer avoid them on principle. Most are associated with health risks as well (reports suggest they may be contaminated with carcinogens like 1,4 dioxane in the production process), so there’s that.   A true zero-waste beauty routine would also eliminate “bioaccumulative” ingredients—substances that build up in the environment and never break down. Examples are triclosan, triclocarban, and silicone. Silicone is the most widely-used; it could be hiding out in ingredient lists under the names dimethicone, cyclomethicone, cyclohexasiloxane, cetearyl methicone, and cyclopentasiloxane.   Singer prefers 100 percent natural and organic ingredients, which can be hard to find in conventional beauty products. So why not buy organic herbs and oils in bulk and DIY? I personally make most of my zero-waste skincare products—including cleansers, toners, moisturizers, and masks—this way, using my own (reusable!)  glass jars and bottles.   “A box of baking soda and a jar of coconut oil can pretty much cover your beauty routine,” Singer adds. She combines the two to make toothpaste and uses baking soda “as my deodorant, facial exfoliant, and spot treatment.” And coconut oil, as everyone knows by now, is the ultimate multitasker: Use it as a makeup remover, oil cleanser, body moisturizer, and shaving cream.  

But have you thought about shipping?

  Overwhelmed yet? No? Then consider the environmental cost of packing and shipping your online purchases: the boxes, the bubble wrap, the paper inserts, and the stickers. Ahhh!   It’s always preferable to shop in-person, but if you can’t, look for online retailers who ship in recyclable containers without excess packaging. Package Free, Saie Beauty, and LOLI Beauty are safe bets.  

If the thought of your plastic- and petrochemical-filled bathroom cabinet makes you want to get rid of it all and start fresh… don’t.

  “If you want to reduce your waste, don’t just throw away all your shit and buy new stuff,” Singer says. “I always suggest using up what you already have before getting something new.” This makes for a smoother transition, anyway. Once you finish your current tube of toothpaste, try a sustainable Tooth Powder. After that, who knows? Maybe you’ll feel more comfortable trading in your silicone-soaked shampoo for package-free shampoo bar.  

Now, recycle those empties.

  Don’t forget the first rule of zero waste: Nothing gets thrown away. If your products come in recyclable paper, compost it. For plastic, aluminum, steel, or glass options, it’s all about recycling.   Here’s the catch: Recycling can be confusing. Some say it’s a scam. Most municipal services provide very limited recycling, or sometimes no recycling at all. Thankfully, there are plenty of programs that will take your empty beauty products and properly recycle them for you.   Package Free and Beauty Heroes have TerraCycle bins in-store, where they accept almost any packaging material you can imagine. You can also order your own TerraCycle box and ship your recyclables to the company directly. More and more eco-minded beauty brands now offer similar mail-in programs. At lilah b., for instance, customers can send back used products (even if they’re not originally from lilah b.) and the company will process them for recycling. Credo Beauty and Ayond do the same.  

Yes, I know, it’s a lot.

  But you know what else is a lot? The money I used to spend on skincare I didn’t need. The effort I put into breaking down the boxes that appeared on my porch. The sheer amount of bubble wrap I hoarded in the hopes of reusing it; enough to cover my California King. Twice. The climate change anxiety that would tighten in my chest at night. The guilt I felt for not doing anything about it.   I used to think the biggest perk of being a beauty editor was the free products—now, I realize it’s the platform. If every single person who reads this article commits to just one low-waste product swap this month, we can make a difference. “You don’t have to change your habits all at once,” Singer acknowledges. “You can make one different choice now, and gradually, over time, it adds up.”   Who’s with me?

1. Tiny toy co.

That little partnerless doll shoe you found in between your couch cushions, or a random piece from a Lego set—basically any small toy or toy debris that can be named is something that this Canadian social enterprise wants. The company, founded by a teacher-librarian, up-cycles these items into educational kits.   Send toys or toy pieces that are no bigger than the palm of your hand to its Etobicoke, Ont., mailing address. Or, if you live in the Greater Toronto Area, you can drop them off at several locations. There are some exceptions to what they’ll accept, like doll clothes, broken plastic pieces and electronic toys, for instance, so it’s best to consult the Tiny Toy Co. website before sending toys in.   Endless scraps of paper, dried-out markers and pens with missing caps don’t have to end up in the landfill.  

2. Staples

Mechanical pencils and used pens, markers, highlighters and their caps, can be returned to Staples Canada to be recycled by TerraCycle (see below) for free.  

3. Crayola

With Crayola’s ColorCycle program, students in participating provinces can collect used Crayola markers in their school, which are then shipped for free to be repurposed or recycled.  

4. Terracycle

This New Jersey-based company, launched by an entrepreneur who grew up in Toronto, specializes in recycling otherwise hard-to-recycle items like electronic toys, action figures, shoes, sippy cups, diaper pails, snack wrappers and baby food pouches. Simply buy a box for the type of item you need to purge, fill it up and send it back. They’ll take care of the rest.       Yep, we see that bucket seat collecting dust under the pile of stuffies in the back corner of your kid’s playroom. Likely the biggest hunk of junk making its way to a landfill near you is your kid’s old car seat. But there’s hope.  

5. ATMO Recycling

This non-profit social enterprise hires people with barriers to employment, such as new immigrants or those with disabilities, to take car seats apart so all the materials can be properly recycled. Operating in Ontario and British Columbia, a recycling fee may apply. ATMO also works with local municipalities and retailers on special days when car seats can be brought in to be recycled.  

6. Clek

Working with ATMO, this Canadian car and booster seat maker will recycle old Clek products for a fee of between $25 and $40, depending on the model.  

What is “clean beauty”? And for that matter, green beauty, eco-friendly beauty, and natural beauty? In this monthly column, clean beauty expert Jessica Yarbrough explores the ins and out of no-waste and low-waste beauty, reports on the products and ingredients to look out for, and answers all the most pressing questions surrounding this topic.     There are perks to being a beauty editor, and one of them is free beauty products. So many free beauty products. More free beauty products than one person could want or need or even use. When the product-filled packages first appeared on my doorstep—about a year and a half ago, just after “Beauty Editor” appeared in my email signature—I felt like I had it all: I had found my passion, was being paid to write about it, and was getting dozens (upon dozens) of mists, masks, and more to test on a weekly basis.   But that perk soon presented a problem. The boxes and bubble wrap and bottles piled up, first on my bathroom counter, then in a hallway closet, then in a permanent donation bin by the front door.  I had it all, sure—but it was all too much.   As that pile grew, it changed the way I saw the beauty industry. Every article I read (“17 Amazon Beauty Products You Need Right Now!”) or Instagram shelfie I “liked” made me wonder: How much waste came from this piece of content? And not just from the editors and influencers creating said content, either—but from those consuming it?   I had found a new passion.   Over the past year, I’ve stopped focusing so much on beauty products and started focusing on the beauty industry—particularly its impact on the planet, which is very big, to say the least. Did you know that beauty brands produce about 77 billion units of plastic packaging per year, and over 70 percent of that ends up in landfills? Or that packaging accounts for 40 percent of the world’s plastic waste? In major cities, it’s estimated that 38 percent of the VOC emissions in air pollution comes from the spritzing and slathering of hairspray and serum and perfume. 7.6 billion pounds of makeup wipes are sent to landfills every year—and that’s just makeup wipes. I mean, imagine the environmental impact of our collective skin care, hair care, body care, and makeup routines!   I couldn’t justify adding to that garbage patch of products anymore, so I made a conscious effort to reduce my own environmental impact: I gave all those gently used lipsticks and lotions to friends and family who would use them, donated the unopened boxes to my local women’s shelter, and pared back my daily regimen to just the basics. (Oh, and I stopped accepting free press samples—which has been the most freeing experience of my adult life.)   This year, I’m resolving to take it one step further by adopting a zero-waste beauty routine.  

Zero-waste means producing zero trash. Nothing gets tossed in the garbage can, nothing goes to a landfill. Everything gets recycled or composted.

  That’s a pretty tough standard to meet, especially in the world of plastic palettes and squeezy shampoo bottles.   “Beauty was and continues to be one of the hardest areas for me,” Lauren Singer, the founder and CEO of Package Free and blogger behind Trash Is For Tossers, tells HelloGiggles of starting her zero waste journey. “My personal care products—toothpaste, face wash, moisturizer—were packaged in and then sold in huge amounts of plastic. Not only that, their ingredients were composed of synthetic materials of petrochemical origin. I was swimming in plastic.”   That said, Singer’s doing pretty well these days: All of the trash she’s generated over the past five years fits inside one 16-ounce mason jar. Yup, seriously. This is why I hit her up for advice on the whole not-contributing-to-the-demise-of-the-planet thing.  

The first step: Use less.

  You’re probably familiar with the motto “reduce, reuse, recycle”—but there’s another “R” word that belongs at the top of that list, and it’s “refuse.” In other words: Don’t buy things you don’t need.   “I think marketing does a really good job at making us feel ugly, like we need a million products to look and feel our best,” Singer says. “I realized, I don’t need a million products to look and feel my best—I found two that actually work really well.” Her zero-waste skin care routine consists of a Tea Tree Charcoal Facial Bar Soap (“I use a washcloth with that instead of an exfoliant”) and Juniper Carrot Seed Face Oil, both from sustainable beauty brand Meow Meow Tweet.           Unexpected bonus: Fewer products mean less stress for your skin barrier and healthier skin. Singer’s almost-unreal radiance can attest to that, but so can some of the year’s biggest skin care trends: “skin fasting,” “skip-care,” and the fall of exfoliation.   Multitasking makeup products fit into this less-is-more model, too. “Rose-Marie Swift’s RMS Beauty was the first brand to tackle multi-use with its Lip2Cheek,” Singer says. “She was pioneering in that, I’d say.” RMS Beauty still stands out in the space thanks to its glass (read: not plastic!) packaging, but today, there are plenty of other two-in-ones to choose from, including versions from Tata Harper, Alleyoop, and (M)anasi7.  

Swapping out single-use products can make a major impact.

  The easiest way to lower your environmental impact is to replace your single-use beauty products—things you use once and throw away, like makeup wipes, exfoliating pads, sheets masks, and cotton swabs—with sustainable alternatives. Like, you know, a washcloth (the OG makeup wipe).   I love Silvon’s face towels, which are threaded with antimicrobial silver to keep bacteria from building up. Face masks that come in glass jars, like OSEA’s White Algae Mask, are considerably more eco-friendly than one-and-done sheet masks; and Singer even sells reusable “cotton swabs” at Package Free. (They come in cases made from biodegradable corn, naturally.)  

It’s all about the packaging.

  Remember those 77 billion units of plastic packaging per year, which help make up 40 percent of the world’s total waste? Yeah, the goal of zero waste beauty is to avoid them completely.   “The best thing is no packaging,” Singer says, which sounds obvious and also impossible. There are ways to side-step all that pesky plastic, though. Package Free’s physical locations in New York City offer bulk “fill stations” for oils, deodorants, dry shampoo, and toothpaste, among other things. Customers simply bring their own containers to fill and voila! Package-free beauty. Clean beauty brand Follain, Los Angeles’ Wild Terra, and Savannah’s Salacia Salts all offer similar BYOMJ (Bring Your Own Mason Jar) stations.   “After that, the best option would be paper packaging—but making sure the paper is 100 percent recyclable,” Singer says. “Even a post-consumer recycled paper would be talking that once step further.” Check out Meow Meow Tweet’s shampoo and conditioner bars or Aether Beauty’s eyeshadow palettes to get in on that paper-packaged goodness.     “Then there’s aluminum or steel, which would be the next best option,” according to Singer.  Glass falls into this category as well. These materials are infinitely recyclable, so “they usually contain a huge percentage of recycled material already.” (Recycled plastic degrades in quality over time, and eventually can’t be recycled anymore, which is partly why it’s so darn damaging to the earth.) Plain Products and True Botanicals have your hair care needs covered; both sell shampoo and conditioner in aluminum bottles. For body care, look no further than C & The Moon and Bathing Culture, which package their products in good-for-the-environment glass.   Refillable packaging is another eco-option. “I wear a bronzer and blush from Kjaer Weis,” shares Singer, since the (gorgeous) metal cases are refillable—although, at $58 and $56 a piece, they’re also pretty costly. Over time, however, “it’s actually cheaper to refill, because you’re not paying a premium for packaging every time,” explains the zero waste advocate. (Each Kjaer Weiss refill costs $32.) Alas, refillable options, including Singer’s go-to concealer from Alma Pure, don’t quite count as “zero-waste” yet because the product refills themselves are typically housed in plastic. “This is the one area I think there’s so much room for improvement,” she says. “I haven’t found one brand that seems perfect.”   “Biodegradable” or “compostable” materials are great, too… but only if you actually, well, compost them.   “If there’s anything to be reiterated over and over and over again, it’s this: Don’t send anything that can break down or is biodegradable to a landfill,” Singer says. Many, many studies have shown that biodegradable materials very rarely biodegrade in landfills; they don’t offer enough oxygen, light, or soil to break down plant-based fibers. Instead, these materials should be composted. And if you don’t compost? “Don’t consume biodegradable products,” states Singer. (Sadly, this means Almay’s well-intentioned Biodegradable Longwear Makeup Remover Cleansing Towelettes are a no-go. The directions inexplicably instruct users to “dispose of wipes in trash bin” after use, negating that buzzy “biodegradable” label.)  

Are your ingredients eco-friendly?

  A lot of focus is (rightfully) placed on packaging, but flip that package over and you’ll spy the sneakiest waste products of all: petrochemicals.   Petrochemicals are substances derived from petroleum and natural gas, just like plastics and diesel fuel—and cosmetics are full of ‘em. To name a few: paraffin wax, mineral oil, toluene, benzene, and any ingredient preceded by butyl-, PEG-, or propyl- (like propylene glycol). These are typically low-cost byproducts of the petroleum industry, so while they don’t actively generate waste, zero-waste proponents like Singer avoid them on principle. Most are associated with health risks as well (reports suggest they may be contaminated with carcinogens like 1,4 dioxane in the production process), so there’s that.   A true zero-waste beauty routine would also eliminate “bioaccumulative” ingredients—substances that build up in the environment and never break down. Examples are triclosan, triclocarban, and silicone. Silicone is the most widely-used; it could be hiding out in ingredient lists under the names dimethicone, cyclomethicone, cyclohexasiloxane, cetearyl methicone, and cyclopentasiloxane.   Singer prefers 100 percent natural and organic ingredients, which can be hard to find in conventional beauty products. So why not buy organic herbs and oils in bulk and DIY? I personally make most of my zero-waste skincare products—including cleansers, toners, moisturizers, and masks—this way, using my own (reusable!)  glass jars and bottles.   “A box of baking soda and a jar of coconut oil can pretty much cover your beauty routine,” Singer adds. She combines the two to make toothpaste and uses baking soda “as my deodorant, facial exfoliant, and spot treatment.” And coconut oil, as everyone knows by now, is the ultimate multitasker: Use it as a makeup remover, oil cleanser, body moisturizer, and shaving cream.  

But have you thought about shipping?

  Overwhelmed yet? No? Then consider the environmental cost of packing and shipping your online purchases: the boxes, the bubble wrap, the paper inserts, and the stickers. Ahhh!   It’s always preferable to shop in-person, but if you can’t, look for online retailers who ship in recyclable containers without excess packaging. Package Free, Saie Beauty, and LOLI Beauty are safe bets.  

If the thought of your plastic- and petrochemical-filled bathroom cabinet makes you want to get rid of it all and start fresh… don’t.

  “If you want to reduce your waste, don’t just throw away all your shit and buy new stuff,” Singer says. “I always suggest using up what you already have before getting something new.” This makes for a smoother transition, anyway. Once you finish your current tube of toothpaste, try a sustainable Tooth Powder. After that, who knows? Maybe you’ll feel more comfortable trading in your silicone-soaked shampoo for package-free shampoo bar.  

Now, recycle those empties.

  Don’t forget the first rule of zero waste: Nothing gets thrown away. If your products come in recyclable paper, compost it. For plastic, aluminum, steel, or glass options, it’s all about recycling.   Here’s the catch: Recycling can be confusing. Some say it’s a scam. Most municipal services provide very limited recycling, or sometimes no recycling at all. Thankfully, there are plenty of programs that will take your empty beauty products and properly recycle them for you.   Package Free and Beauty Heroes have TerraCycle bins in-store, where they accept almost any packaging material you can imagine. You can also order your own TerraCycle box and ship your recyclables to the company directly. More and more eco-minded beauty brands now offer similar mail-in programs. At lilah b., for instance, customers can send back used products (even if they’re not originally from lilah b.) and the company will process them for recycling. Credo Beauty and Ayond do the same.  

Yes, I know, it’s a lot.

  But you know what else is a lot? The money I used to spend on skincare I didn’t need. The effort I put into breaking down the boxes that appeared on my porch. The sheer amount of bubble wrap I hoarded in the hopes of reusing it; enough to cover my California King. Twice. The climate change anxiety that would tighten in my chest at night. The guilt I felt for not doing anything about it.   I used to think the biggest perk of being a beauty editor was the free products—now, I realize it’s the platform. If every single person who reads this article commits to just one low-waste product swap this month, we can make a difference. “You don’t have to change your habits all at once,” Singer acknowledges. “You can make one different choice now, and gradually, over time, it adds up.”   Who’s with me?

NEW YORK — Garbage is inevitable in the restaurant and bar business. Kitchen employees toss onion skins and meat fat into the wastebasket almost instinctively. Once-used plastic wrap and slips guarding the linens find their way into black bags for trash-day pickup. Plastic bags are ordered by the bundle and then often discarded after customers use them to take leftovers home.   At the Brooklyn natural wine bar and restaurant Rhodora, however, taking out the trash works a little differently.   The new eatery is one of a handful of establishments in various cities that have begun to operate under a zero-waste ethos, meaning they do not send any trash or food waste that enters their business to a landfill. There is not even a traditional trash can on the premises.   The aim is to lessen the restaurants’ environmental effect while running a profitable venture — with a possible added benefit of solidifying their eco-conscious bona fides among discerning clientele. Such radical idealism comes with challenges, including finding producers and distributors who can accommodate requests like compostable packaging and figuring out how to recycle broken appliances.   “We’re in the business of serving people,” said Henry Rich, a co-owner of Rhodora. “And it feels incongruent to take care of somebody for an evening and try to show them a great time, and then externalize the waste and carbon footprint of that evening onto people.”   A recent report from ReFED, a nonprofit organization focused on food waste reduction, found that restaurants in the United States generate about 11.4 million tons of food waste annually, or $25.1 billion in costs. The Environmental Protection Agency has reported that food waste and packaging account for nearly 45% of the materials sent to landfills in the United States.   The reason zero-waste “is not a mainstream concept, that you don’t see it in gastronomy or hospitality in mainstream ways, is because we’re just waking up to it,” said the chef Douglas McMaster, who runs the waste-free London restaurant Silo and advised the owners of Rhodora. “We’re just seeing the reality of wasting as much as we do.”   Rich and Halley Chambers, the deputy director of his Oberon restaurant group and co-owner of Rhodora, spent almost 10 months and $50,000 researching and transforming their Fort Greene space into a neighborhood joint that could operate without any trash pickup.   Out went many of their regular vendors who wrapped deliveries in single-use plastic. In came tools to aid their waste-reduction efforts: a cardboard shredder to turn wine boxes into composting material, a dishwashing setup that converts salt into soap, beeswax wrap in lieu of plastic wrap.   “It’s not arcane secret knowledge,” Rich said. “It’s just a couple things that are very specific, and you need to kind of reengineer how you think about” operating a restaurant or bar.   Much of the planning time was spent searching for distributors and producers who could adhere to Rhodora’s mission. One cheesemaker offered to remove the plastic wrapping before delivery — and then throw it in the garbage.   A handful of companies were able to accommodate the unorthodox restrictions, including She Wolf Bakery and its sister butcher shop, Marlow & Daughters, which deliver reusable plastic bins full of fresh-baked breads and jars of pickled vegetables and eggs via Cargo Bike Collective riders. Another company, A Priori Distribution, switched to using compostable packaging and paper tape when dropping off aluminum tins of fish.   “It certainly is unique, and that is new for us,” said Caroline Fidanza, culinary director of the Marlow Collective, which includes She Wolf and Marlow & Daughters. “There’s a certain amount of that that’s very doable. It’s harder to package things than to not package them on some level.”   Alongside limiting the amount of spoilable inventory Rhodora orders, Rich said, the bar eliminated any sort of chef position, partly to avoid creating “a top-down kind of vibe, where there were things being considered other than being zero waste.”   Rhodora’s staff members, who rotate duties like waiting on customers and popping sardine tins to plate food orders, congregate weekly to generate simple menu ideas based on what’s available from the bar’s dozen or so approved vendors. Cheese boards and mushroom broth are staples.   “Having a small staff playing a central role, we can be more nimble than a normal restaurant,” Chambers said.   The paper menus, which feature a miniessay on the restaurant’s green mission, are fed to the compost pile when they become outdated or tattered. Anything left on customers’ plates is dumped into collection bins in the kitchen, which are fed into the commercial-grade composter tucked inside hutches adjacent to the bar. (Rhodora does not serve meat, which is more difficult to compost, although its composter does process any fish that is left over.)   Natural wine bottles and most other noncompostable containers are removed for recycling via Royal Waste Services, which the restaurant said also accepted broken glass. Corks are donated to ReCork, a recycling program that repurposes the material for shoe soles and yoga blocks.   There are financial incentives for restaurants to invest in these zero-waste practices, with one study finding that restaurants save on average $7 for every $1 invested in kitchen food waste-reduction practices. The National Restaurant Association found that around half of diners say they are beginning to consider establishments’ efforts to recycle and reduce food waste when choosing where to eat.   But many establishments operate on slim profit margins, and it is not always immediately obvious how programs to reduce food waste can translate into financial gains, said Angel Veza, director of the Hospitality Advisory at First Principle Group, a global advisory firm. Many chefs and restaurant owners see little incentive in pursuing more environmentally friendly ways to order ingredients, much less pay an extra $800 as Rhodora does for a bin from TerraCycle. The company turns hard-to-recycle trash left behind by customers, like gum or plastic wrapping, into new goods. (Rhodora has a second bin placed in the bathroom for used hygiene products.)   “If they’re thriving, making money, they don’t have a reason to change,” said Veza. “Restaurants close all the time, too, so the last thing they’re going to think about is, ‘Am I going to use single-use plastic?’”   Though Rhodora is striving to ensure its space is zero waste, the system isn’t perfect. It hasn’t been determined, for example, what the landfill-eschewing answer is to disposing of a dishwasher beyond repair.   “I don’t want to pretend we have everything figured out,” Rich said.   The first batch of compost will be used to fertilize its minigardens on top of hutches outside the wine bar, and possibly the Brooklyn Grange’s rooftop farm at the Navy Yard. A Rhodora spokeswoman also said that compared with Rich’s previous Brooklyn restaurant venture Mettā, the business had saved an average of $300 a month in part by eliminating its trash pickup. (Chambers estimated that Mettā, which promoted itself as being a carbon-neutral and low-waste restaurant, produced 7,000 pounds of trash per month.)   “We’re at one pivot point,” Rich said. “The hope is that maybe we can influence and inspire some people above and below to learn what zero waste is, because it’s so beautifully simple not having a trash and not sending it to the landfill.”   This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

NEW YORK — Garbage is inevitable in the restaurant and bar business. Kitchen employees toss onion skins and meat fat into the wastebasket almost instinctively. Once-used plastic wrap and slips guarding the linens find their way into black bags for trash-day pickup. Plastic bags are ordered by the bundle and then often discarded after customers use them to take leftovers home.   At the Brooklyn natural wine bar and restaurant Rhodora, however, taking out the trash works a little differently.   The new eatery is one of a handful of establishments in various cities that have begun to operate under a zero-waste ethos, meaning they do not send any trash or food waste that enters their business to a landfill. There is not even a traditional trash can on the premises.   The aim is to lessen the restaurants’ environmental effect while running a profitable venture — with a possible added benefit of solidifying their eco-conscious bona fides among discerning clientele. Such radical idealism comes with challenges, including finding producers and distributors who can accommodate requests like compostable packaging and figuring out how to recycle broken appliances.   “We’re in the business of serving people,” said Henry Rich, a co-owner of Rhodora. “And it feels incongruent to take care of somebody for an evening and try to show them a great time, and then externalize the waste and carbon footprint of that evening onto people.”   A recent report from ReFED, a nonprofit organization focused on food waste reduction, found that restaurants in the United States generate about 11.4 million tons of food waste annually, or $25.1 billion in costs. The Environmental Protection Agency has reported that food waste and packaging account for nearly 45% of the materials sent to landfills in the United States.   The reason zero-waste “is not a mainstream concept, that you don’t see it in gastronomy or hospitality in mainstream ways, is because we’re just waking up to it,” said the chef Douglas McMaster, who runs the waste-free London restaurant Silo and advised the owners of Rhodora. “We’re just seeing the reality of wasting as much as we do.”   Rich and Halley Chambers, the deputy director of his Oberon restaurant group and co-owner of Rhodora, spent almost 10 months and $50,000 researching and transforming their Fort Greene space into a neighborhood joint that could operate without any trash pickup.   Out went many of their regular vendors who wrapped deliveries in single-use plastic. In came tools to aid their waste-reduction efforts: a cardboard shredder to turn wine boxes into composting material, a dishwashing setup that converts salt into soap, beeswax wrap in lieu of plastic wrap.   “It’s not arcane secret knowledge,” Rich said. “It’s just a couple things that are very specific, and you need to kind of reengineer how you think about” operating a restaurant or bar.   Much of the planning time was spent searching for distributors and producers who could adhere to Rhodora’s mission. One cheesemaker offered to remove the plastic wrapping before delivery — and then throw it in the garbage.   A handful of companies were able to accommodate the unorthodox restrictions, including She Wolf Bakery and its sister butcher shop, Marlow & Daughters, which deliver reusable plastic bins full of fresh-baked breads and jars of pickled vegetables and eggs via Cargo Bike Collective riders. Another company, A Priori Distribution, switched to using compostable packaging and paper tape when dropping off aluminum tins of fish.   “It certainly is unique, and that is new for us,” said Caroline Fidanza, culinary director of the Marlow Collective, which includes She Wolf and Marlow & Daughters. “There’s a certain amount of that that’s very doable. It’s harder to package things than to not package them on some level.”   Alongside limiting the amount of spoilable inventory Rhodora orders, Rich said, the bar eliminated any sort of chef position, partly to avoid creating “a top-down kind of vibe, where there were things being considered other than being zero waste.”   Rhodora’s staff members, who rotate duties like waiting on customers and popping sardine tins to plate food orders, congregate weekly to generate simple menu ideas based on what’s available from the bar’s dozen or so approved vendors. Cheese boards and mushroom broth are staples.   “Having a small staff playing a central role, we can be more nimble than a normal restaurant,” Chambers said.   The paper menus, which feature a miniessay on the restaurant’s green mission, are fed to the compost pile when they become outdated or tattered. Anything left on customers’ plates is dumped into collection bins in the kitchen, which are fed into the commercial-grade composter tucked inside hutches adjacent to the bar. (Rhodora does not serve meat, which is more difficult to compost, although its composter does process any fish that is left over.)   Natural wine bottles and most other noncompostable containers are removed for recycling via Royal Waste Services, which the restaurant said also accepted broken glass. Corks are donated to ReCork, a recycling program that repurposes the material for shoe soles and yoga blocks.   There are financial incentives for restaurants to invest in these zero-waste practices, with one study finding that restaurants save on average $7 for every $1 invested in kitchen food waste-reduction practices. The National Restaurant Association found that around half of diners say they are beginning to consider establishments’ efforts to recycle and reduce food waste when choosing where to eat.   But many establishments operate on slim profit margins, and it is not always immediately obvious how programs to reduce food waste can translate into financial gains, said Angel Veza, director of the Hospitality Advisory at First Principle Group, a global advisory firm. Many chefs and restaurant owners see little incentive in pursuing more environmentally friendly ways to order ingredients, much less pay an extra $800 as Rhodora does for a bin from TerraCycle. The company turns hard-to-recycle trash left behind by customers, like gum or plastic wrapping, into new goods. (Rhodora has a second bin placed in the bathroom for used hygiene products.)   “If they’re thriving, making money, they don’t have a reason to change,” said Veza. “Restaurants close all the time, too, so the last thing they’re going to think about is, ‘Am I going to use single-use plastic?’”   Though Rhodora is striving to ensure its space is zero waste, the system isn’t perfect. It hasn’t been determined, for example, what the landfill-eschewing answer is to disposing of a dishwasher beyond repair.   “I don’t want to pretend we have everything figured out,” Rich said.   The first batch of compost will be used to fertilize its minigardens on top of hutches outside the wine bar, and possibly the Brooklyn Grange’s rooftop farm at the Navy Yard. A Rhodora spokeswoman also said that compared with Rich’s previous Brooklyn restaurant venture Mettā, the business had saved an average of $300 a month in part by eliminating its trash pickup. (Chambers estimated that Mettā, which promoted itself as being a carbon-neutral and low-waste restaurant, produced 7,000 pounds of trash per month.)   “We’re at one pivot point,” Rich said. “The hope is that maybe we can influence and inspire some people above and below to learn what zero waste is, because it’s so beautifully simple not having a trash and not sending it to the landfill.”   This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

NEW YORK — Garbage is inevitable in the restaurant and bar business. Kitchen employees toss onion skins and meat fat into the wastebasket almost instinctively. Once-used plastic wrap and slips guarding the linens find their way into black bags for trash-day pickup. Plastic bags are ordered by the bundle and then often discarded after customers use them to take leftovers home.   At the Brooklyn natural wine bar and restaurant Rhodora, however, taking out the trash works a little differently.   The new eatery is one of a handful of establishments in various cities that have begun to operate under a zero-waste ethos, meaning they do not send any trash or food waste that enters their business to a landfill. There is not even a traditional trash can on the premises.   The aim is to lessen the restaurants’ environmental effect while running a profitable venture — with a possible added benefit of solidifying their eco-conscious bona fides among discerning clientele. Such radical idealism comes with challenges, including finding producers and distributors who can accommodate requests like compostable packaging and figuring out how to recycle broken appliances.   “We’re in the business of serving people,” said Henry Rich, a co-owner of Rhodora. “And it feels incongruent to take care of somebody for an evening and try to show them a great time, and then externalize the waste and carbon footprint of that evening onto people.”   A recent report from ReFED, a nonprofit organization focused on food waste reduction, found that restaurants in the United States generate about 11.4 million tons of food waste annually, or $25.1 billion in costs. The Environmental Protection Agency has reported that food waste and packaging account for nearly 45% of the materials sent to landfills in the United States.   The reason zero-waste “is not a mainstream concept, that you don’t see it in gastronomy or hospitality in mainstream ways, is because we’re just waking up to it,” said the chef Douglas McMaster, who runs the waste-free London restaurant Silo and advised the owners of Rhodora. “We’re just seeing the reality of wasting as much as we do.”   Rich and Halley Chambers, the deputy director of his Oberon restaurant group and co-owner of Rhodora, spent almost 10 months and $50,000 researching and transforming their Fort Greene space into a neighborhood joint that could operate without any trash pickup.   Out went many of their regular vendors who wrapped deliveries in single-use plastic. In came tools to aid their waste-reduction efforts: a cardboard shredder to turn wine boxes into composting material, a dishwashing setup that converts salt into soap, beeswax wrap in lieu of plastic wrap.   “It’s not arcane secret knowledge,” Rich said. “It’s just a couple things that are very specific, and you need to kind of reengineer how you think about” operating a restaurant or bar.   Much of the planning time was spent searching for distributors and producers who could adhere to Rhodora’s mission. One cheesemaker offered to remove the plastic wrapping before delivery — and then throw it in the garbage.   A handful of companies were able to accommodate the unorthodox restrictions, including She Wolf Bakery and its sister butcher shop, Marlow & Daughters, which deliver reusable plastic bins full of fresh-baked breads and jars of pickled vegetables and eggs via Cargo Bike Collective riders. Another company, A Priori Distribution, switched to using compostable packaging and paper tape when dropping off aluminum tins of fish.   “It certainly is unique, and that is new for us,” said Caroline Fidanza, culinary director of the Marlow Collective, which includes She Wolf and Marlow & Daughters. “There’s a certain amount of that that’s very doable. It’s harder to package things than to not package them on some level.”   Alongside limiting the amount of spoilable inventory Rhodora orders, Rich said, the bar eliminated any sort of chef position, partly to avoid creating “a top-down kind of vibe, where there were things being considered other than being zero waste.”   Rhodora’s staff members, who rotate duties like waiting on customers and popping sardine tins to plate food orders, congregate weekly to generate simple menu ideas based on what’s available from the bar’s dozen or so approved vendors. Cheese boards and mushroom broth are staples.   “Having a small staff playing a central role, we can be more nimble than a normal restaurant,” Chambers said.   The paper menus, which feature a miniessay on the restaurant’s green mission, are fed to the compost pile when they become outdated or tattered. Anything left on customers’ plates is dumped into collection bins in the kitchen, which are fed into the commercial-grade composter tucked inside hutches adjacent to the bar. (Rhodora does not serve meat, which is more difficult to compost, although its composter does process any fish that is left over.)   Natural wine bottles and most other noncompostable containers are removed for recycling via Royal Waste Services, which the restaurant said also accepted broken glass. Corks are donated to ReCork, a recycling program that repurposes the material for shoe soles and yoga blocks.   There are financial incentives for restaurants to invest in these zero-waste practices, with one study finding that restaurants save on average $7 for every $1 invested in kitchen food waste-reduction practices. The National Restaurant Association found that around half of diners say they are beginning to consider establishments’ efforts to recycle and reduce food waste when choosing where to eat.   But many establishments operate on slim profit margins, and it is not always immediately obvious how programs to reduce food waste can translate into financial gains, said Angel Veza, director of the Hospitality Advisory at First Principle Group, a global advisory firm. Many chefs and restaurant owners see little incentive in pursuing more environmentally friendly ways to order ingredients, much less pay an extra $800 as Rhodora does for a bin from TerraCycle. The company turns hard-to-recycle trash left behind by customers, like gum or plastic wrapping, into new goods. (Rhodora has a second bin placed in the bathroom for used hygiene products.)   “If they’re thriving, making money, they don’t have a reason to change,” said Veza. “Restaurants close all the time, too, so the last thing they’re going to think about is, ‘Am I going to use single-use plastic?’”   Though Rhodora is striving to ensure its space is zero waste, the system isn’t perfect. It hasn’t been determined, for example, what the landfill-eschewing answer is to disposing of a dishwasher beyond repair.   “I don’t want to pretend we have everything figured out,” Rich said.   The first batch of compost will be used to fertilize its minigardens on top of hutches outside the wine bar, and possibly the Brooklyn Grange’s rooftop farm at the Navy Yard. A Rhodora spokeswoman also said that compared with Rich’s previous Brooklyn restaurant venture Mettā, the business had saved an average of $300 a month in part by eliminating its trash pickup. (Chambers estimated that Mettā, which promoted itself as being a carbon-neutral and low-waste restaurant, produced 7,000 pounds of trash per month.)   “We’re at one pivot point,” Rich said. “The hope is that maybe we can influence and inspire some people above and below to learn what zero waste is, because it’s so beautifully simple not having a trash and not sending it to the landfill.”   This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Toothbrushes and Toothpaste Tubes

  Oral care products and their packaging are made with everything from numbered plastics and nylon to aluminum and steel, and recyclers need to process each of those materials separately — which makes them a no-go for many local programs. If you’ve got the time to research what’s gone into your items and break them down yourself, Earth911 will walk you through how to do it. If you’d rather leave it to the experts, TerraCycle and Colgate offer a mail-in Oral Care Recycling Program.      

Hard Plastic Toys

  Unlike plastic products like food packaging, toys don’t tend to have recycling codes stamped on them (which means it’s difficult to ID their components, and most municipal programs won’t accept them). As the experts at Treehugger note, shelters, child care centers, thrift stores and donation programs are always in need of clean and functional toys; if your items are unusable, consider disposing of them with a Zero Waste Box from TerraCycle.