Uniting the beauty industry in a bid to tackle packaging waste head on, we’re excited to announce The Great British Beauty Clean up – an initiative from The British Beauty Council’s Sustainable Beauty Coalition.
The campaign aims to combat beauty packaging waste by educating consumers and industry professionals on effective recycling practices and the benefits of refillable products.
British Beauty Council
On a mission
The initiative comes in response to alarming results from British Beauty Council research, which reveal that 86% of plastic beauty packaging is not recycled.
While 79.3% of consumers consider sustainability an important factor in purchasing decisions, only 23.4% currently use refillable skincare products.
To address this issue, the campaign will provide clear guidance on how to dispose of beauty empties responsibly. It will also raise awareness about what can and cannot be recycled through standard household waste collections.
The Great British Beauty Clean-up
Backing from big brands
More than 50 retailers and brands are backing the campaign, including Boots, L’Oréal and Elemis, and will be educating consumers on the importance of refill and reuse for more conscious consumption. There will also be a concerted industry-wide effort to educate people on what they can and cannot recycle at home.
As part of the initiative, the British Beauty Council is revamping its interactive recycling map which pin-points the various recycling programmes offered by UK beauty businesses, where consumers can drop off their ‘hard to recycle’ packaging.
Consumers will be encouraged to collect and correctly dispose of packaging that cannot be processed via standard household recycling, including:
- Small items (travel minis, samples, mascaras, etc)
- Composite materials (make-up palettes, compacts, lipsticks, etc)
- Non-recyclable materials (toothpaste tubes, lotion pumps, etc)
Spotlight on initiatives
Many business and brands are using the initiative as an opportunity to spotlight their own recycling campaigns…
- Boots is supporting the campaign by highlighting it’s Recycle at Boots scheme, available in over 800 stores across the UK with over 330k registered users already. Recycle at Boots is also the industry’s most generous recycling scheme, offering 500 Boots Advantage Card Points, worth £5 for every five items deposited, when you also spend £10 in store.
- L’Oréal, which heads up the Maybelline recycling programme found in over 1,500 UK stores, is spotlighting its recycling points on the British Beauty Council’s map which are found in Sainsbury’s, Superdrug and Tesco stores.
- Consumers will also be able to head down to John Lewis stores to use its BeautyCycle scheme and will be able to claim a reward to spend on B-Corp certified beauty products including Medik8, ELEMIS and more.
- British Skincare brand ELEMIS will be educating its community on their recycling programme at their London locations; No.23 Monmouth Street and The House of ELEMIS with in-store communications highlighting its take back scheme, including a new customer loyalty initiative.
- Online, The Hut Group – owner of Cult Beauty and LOOKFANTASTIC – will be spotlighting its ‘recycle:me’ programme under the initiative. This enables recycling via a Royal Mail doorstep collection service and network of 14,000 drop off locations and rewards customers for doing so.
The programme is running throughout March with retailers, brands and businesses activating to align with key dates including: Waste Week (3rd–9th March), Global Recycling Day (18th March) and the United Nations International Day of Zero Waste (30th March).
You can find out more and use the British Beauty Council’s interactive recycling map HERE.
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