What Can I Do With Makeup Packaging

How to Recycle Your Makeup Containers

Plus more ways to reduce beauty waste

Climate change is hard to deny when we come across how much modify has happened in the time we've been practicing social distancing due to the COVID-xix pandemic. Last month, the carbon dioxide levels in New York City were 50% lower than they were in March 2019. Environmentalists are also tracking the air pollution to a higher place Wuhan province in China; it went down significantly for ii months while everyone was in isolation and is now creeping dorsum upwardly.

While we wrestle with these challenging times, many are starting to see what the human impact on our planet really looks similar.

You've likely heard the statistic that less than 11% of plastic is really recycled properly in Canada. But did you also know that every year in the United states of americaA., according to the Environmental Protection Agency, over two billion razors and refill blades are sent to landfill? Even worse, that stat is actually from a 1988 report, and that number has likely gone upward exponentially since and then. If you do math and consider that nosotros have similar spending habits to our neighbours to the south, Canada has about 10% the corporeality of people every bit the U.S., so it would rails that nosotros throw away well-nigh 200 meg disposable razors each twelvemonth, at minimum.

The higher up data notwithstanding, Canadian stats on how much plastic waste material really comes from the beauty and self-care sector are very elusive. Unless brands release their numbers on products sold, information technology's hard to estimate the actual corporeality of plastic that ends upward in landfills. Still, information technology'southward prophylactic to assume a lot of plastic gets thrown out because of our Sephora sprees.

So what does all the doom and gloom have to do with you lot and your dazzler and personal care habits? Well, there are a few ways to brand sure that you're doing the most you can when information technology comes to not adding to our already massive recycling problem. "I of the best ways to make sure that change happens is to make the companies understand that you actually intendance about this consequence," says Vito Buonsante , plastics program manager at Environmental Defence Canada . "People tin can only do so much. Information technology's non actually their responsibility to control the waste; information technology's more than on the company."

Buonsante recommends that we have a look at what we're purchasing and offset giving our money to brands that offering recycling programs or that use more than easily recycled materials, like glass and tin, every bit opposed to plastic. If it's absolutely necessary to purchase plastic, check that the container has a 1 or two plastic rating, which tin be found on bottles inside the recycle symbol. Those numbers are the most desirable for recycling programs (the system ranks upwards to a 7). "The problem with packaging in the beauty industry is that it is oftentimes fabricated of mixed materials, therefore it becomes pretty difficult to recycle," says Buonsante. In short, try not to buy cosmetic products with a plastic rating of 3 or higher.

Strongly expressing your ecology concerns to your member of parliament and local metropolis councillor is also helpful, says Buonsante, as is signing plastics-focused petitions and supporting environmental charities (like the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Club , Ecotrust Canada or whatever local conservancy groups) so they tin can continue to aid push things forrad.

And now, while we're taking social distancing measures very seriously, perhaps we can also assist curb our plastic waste anxiety (because really, we don't demand another thing to fret about) by looking into the post-obit means to make our beauty routine a fiddling more environmentally friendly.

Here are four of the best ways to reduce your beauty waste.

i. Recycle empties in-house, get free products

First off, as Buonsante mentioned, think about the brands you invest your hard-earned money in. Ane way to practice that is by choosing brands that already take an in-house recycling programme.

The Back to Grand.A.C program has been around since the early 1990s, making them a true recycling pioneer. The Canadian-founded brand will have back six principal packaging containers (they accept a system where you tin bring in any containers during your next buy, and they'll track how many you have instead of you having to collect them!) in substitution for a lipstick, lipgloss or unmarried eyeshadow.

If yous're a big Creme de Corps fan, you lot will receive one stamp for each full-sized empty bottle of the trunk cream that you bring back to a Kiehl's location to be recycled. Once you have collected ten stamps, you'll get any travel-sized product that your dazzler-loving heart desires.

Over at Lush, when you bring back five of the classic black containers, you can receive i of 16 fresh face masks from the brand.

two. And then have your recycling game to the next level with TerraCycle

Look to recycling programs like TerraCycle to help reduce your environmental impact; when you buy a waste matter box from the company, just make full it up with items that your local municipality will non have, and TerraCycle volition refurbish, recycle or upcycle each item. The squad at TerraCycle will take near annihilation that is difficult to recycle—they accept even establish a way to recycle cigarette butts! Plastic containers go park benches, picnic tables, playgrounds, and so much more. Most municipalities have different rules on recycling (please note yours earlier y'all throw abroad your plastics), so for annihilation that won't be picked upwards curb-side, this program is a great solution.

If the TerraCycle boxes are too pricey (they start at $54, including shipping) some brands and stores are partnering with the program to assistance clients be mindful of their waste without incurring the cost. These include The Detox Market place (all 3 Toronto locations will have whatsoever blazon of dazzler waste product) and Pure + Unproblematic (the Ontario-based store volition take back all their empties to exist recycled).

Big brands like Burt's Bees, L'Oréal, Weleda, Gillette and L'Occitane have a partnership with TerraCycle where you tin send back your empties for recycling (check their website for how to ship back bottles). And, perhaps it'south time to make more use out of these recycling options—Buonsante notes that virtually people are not enlightened that they exist—peculiarly because that most shops are still airtight for the foreseeable future.

3. Endeavour refillable beauty products

A big trend in the dazzler and personal care space is brands offering products in refillable packaging. "When it comes to reusable containers that can exist sent dorsum, the products are likely a scrap more expensive," notes Buonsante. But with fourth dimension, hopefully the prices will even out. "That is where nosotros hope the market will go along to get."

Back in early 2019, TerraCycle'due south founder announced a pilot projection called Loop. Major brand's signed onto the plan, which launched in NYC and Paris. Now, Loblaws is looking to launch a Loop pilot project in Canada this summer. And so what exactly is Loop? Substantially, brands have started putting their products into reusable and recyclable tin containers. This has immune brands to be a touch more blueprint-focused in their new labeling (most brands accept pared downward their logos for this projection), while consumers tin use the product and transport the tins back, where they will either be cleaned and reused, or, if they're too weathered, they volition be recycled.

In the meantime, for the makeup and skincare obsessives, look to companies like Kjaer Weis (the luxe Scandinavian eco-make's packaging is quite gorgeous), Elate cosmetics (this Canadian brand uses beautiful bamboo as their outer packaging, offering refillables for everything in their lineup!), Clove and Hallow (the due west declension cosmetics brand offers refillable compacts!) and Cocoon Apothecary (a Toronto brand who will accept back bottles, sanitize them and reuse them in their supply chain) for refillable options. Some bigger brands, like Paul and Joe , Brand Upwards For Ever and Guerlain , also offer refills, mostly for pulverisation products like highlighters, eye shadows, blushes and pressed powders.

Going local, wait to eco-friendly shops that offer bulk product (new ones are popping up all the fourth dimension!), like Goose egg in Vancouver, Eco + Flirtation in Toronto and The Tare Shop in Halifax. At bulk shops, you tin can bring your own containers or purchase some from the store, and they will weigh each of the products to decide what you owe.

4. Choose production packaging wisely

Making sweeping changes to our beauty routine may seem difficult, but one simple change is to cull packaging materials wisely. A lot of indie brands include glass or other recyclable materials in their packaging, making them with very little plastic or entirely plastic-gratuitous.

A few local Canadian brands that are ahead of the bend here include Boosh (a lipstick line from a young female person entrepreneur with tubes made out of tin), Unwrapped Life (a make of shampoo and conditioner confined that are wrapped simply in recyclable newspaper and paper-thin), deodorant brand Routine . (a Calgary line that sells beautifully scented, natural cream formulations in drinking glass jars with a can hat, and will accept stick deodorants housed in paper-thin and post consumer recycled plastic packaging), WellKept (a line of brass rubber razors that eliminates the demand for disposables and are oh-then-chic!), and Toronto-based Sahajan (this ayurvedic line comes in beautiful brown glass bottles).

Other international faves include Biologique Recherche (a dazzler editor favourite with serums in drinking glass dropper bottles that is now available at Miraj Hammam Spa in Toronto and Vancouver), and Tata Harper (her gorgeous green drinking glass containers set the standard for clean dazzler packaging when they launched in 2010).