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Oct 17, 2024

More Beauty Retailers Embracing a Circular Economy for Packaging | Sustainable Brands

New initiatives from Kiehl’s, Sephora, Shoppers Drug Mart and Ulta lay further groundwork for reducing the beauty industry’s massive plastic footprint. With an estimated 95percent ofcosmetic and

New initiatives from Kiehl’s, Sephora, Shoppers Drug Mart and Ulta lay further groundwork for reducing the beauty industry’s massive plastic footprint.

With an estimated 95percent ofcosmetic and personal-care packaging ending up in landfills and waterways,packaging waste — most of which isn’t accepted in curbside recycling programs —is one of the biggest sustainability challenges facing the beauty industry.According toForbes,94 percent of US consumers support recycling and 74 percent believe it should bea priority; however, only 35 percent say they actually recycle due to confusionand lack of convenient options. Well, a growing number of beauty retailers arenow offering solutions to that.

Image credit: Benjamin VonWong

Kiehl’s Since 1851 has partnered with renowned artist &activist Benjamin Von Wong on “Single-UseReflections” — a sculptural installation on New York City’s HighLine that invites viewers to pause and reflect onhow both widespread systemic change and small individual lifestyle shifts canpositively impact our planet’s future.

The sculpture consists of large-scale mirrors featuring thought-provokingprompts that protrude from the mountain of empty plastic containers and provideunique photo touchpoints. Hidden within the installation is a keyhole whereviewers can peek into a miniature world, inspired by an old-world apothecary —highlighting potential ways to reduce plastic waste.

Join us at SB'24 San Diego as Victor Casale — co-founder of Pact Collective and co-founder and CEO of MOB Beauty — shares insights from ongoing collaborations with materials innovators to create fully compostable, refillable, plastic-free, and easier-to-recycle packaging alternatives for beauty and wellness products.

With more than 400 million metric tons ofplastic discardedannually around the world, “Single-Use Reflections” highlights the impact ofsingle-use plastic on the beauty of our planet while providing optimism for thefuture.

“I am honored to be partnering with Kiehl’s to amplify their message aroundcircularity,” said Von Wong — whose issue-drivenart combines everyday objects with shockingstatistics to drive awareness and change around persistent sustainability issuesincluding ocean plastic, fast fashion and electronicwaste. “I was inspired by the Greek legend ofthe Hydra, which grows back another head for each one that you cut off —reminiscent of the single-use plastic waste problem. I am a firm believer ofprogress over perfection. Through this sculpture, I hope to inspire people andcompanies to join Kiehl’s in loudly championing single-usealternatives.I believe that if we can encourage greater refill use, then companies acrossindustries will have greater incentive to start supporting more refill solutions!”

For over 170 years, Kiehl’s has been committed to the health of skin, body andhair and the wellbeing of the world. The company is committed to moving beyondsustainability tocircularity —pledging transparency about its journey while taking action and inspiringothers, both individuals and companies, to do the same.

As part of its Mission Renewal,Kiehl’s is committed to making single-use plastic a thing of the past bydesigning 100 percent of its products to be reused,refilled or made of recycledmaterials by 2030. So far, the company has collected 7 million empty productsthrough Recycle & Be Rewarded inthe US; and 33 percent of plastic Kiehl’s packaging come from post-consumerrecycled materials.

“Single-Use Reflections” will be on view through April 17 at the High Linein New York City (visiting hours: 7am-10pm EST). To Access: Use the staircase atthe corner of 14th Street and 10th Avenue.

Following its display on the High Line, “Single-Use Reflections” will move to anew location as an ongoing reminder to #DontRebuyJustRefill.

Image credit: Shoppers DrugMart

Up in Canada, leading pharmacy retailer Shoppers DrugMart recently launched its free Quo BeautyCosmetics Free RecyclingProgram, in partnershipwith TerraCycle — whichenables mail-in recycling of empties from Shoppers’ private-label Quo Beautycosmetics brand.

For each pound of cosmetics waste shipped in through the recycling program, $1will be donated to Shoppers Foundation for Women'sHealth™— which works to create equitable and accessible care for all women in Canada.

"As we work to ensure all control-brand packaging is recyclable or reusable by2025, we continue to look for new and innovative ways to eliminate the use ofsingle-us plastics for all product packaging," says PatDean, SVP of CategoryManagement at Shoppers Drug Mart. "We are proud to partner with TerraCycle asthe first major retailer to offer a recycling program for a private-label colorcosmetics line, offering more sustainable choices to Canadians and reducing ourimpact on the planet."

Customers can mail in their eligible empty Quo Beauty cosmetics components bydownloading a prepaid shipping label on the TerraCycle programpage.Once collected, the cosmetic packaging is cleaned and separated by materialtype, and then recycled into raw formats that manufacturers use to make newproducts.

"The majority of cosmetic products are not accepted by curbside recyclingservices due to their complex, multilayer packaging, which often includes smallcomponents such as wands, pumps, and caps that slip through the sortingmachinery at recycling facilities," said TerraCycle founder and CEO TomSzaky,. "As the first major retailer inCanada to create a free recycling program for their own private-label beautybrand, Shoppers Drug Mart is setting a great example for the beauty industry."

Shoppers’ partnership with TerraCycle comes less than a year after the launch ofMore Planet Love by QuoBeauty,which includes over 500 products in packaging that uses recycled plastics,mono-materials and reduced plastic. The retailer aims to have all control-brandpackaging meet the Canada Plastics Pact’s Golden DesignRules by 2025.

Image credit: Pact Collective

Meanwhile, Ulta Beauty hasexpandedits partnership with the nonprofit PactCollective — which is promoting greatercircularity in the beauty industry for both businesses and consumers byproviding a solution for hard-to-recycle beauty packaging. Ulta’s BeautyDrop-Off in-store take-backinitiative, initially launched in 2023 in 90 stores, can now be found chainwideat the over 1,350 Ulta stores in the US. The program aims to help consumers ridthemselves of the burden of recycling beauty SKUs correctly, providing binswhere shoppers can drop off empty packaging. Pact then facilitates recyclingthrough upcycling, downcycling, molecular recycling, and waste-to-energyconversion.

"We hope that this collaboration will provide more education and accessibilityto beauty consumers," CarlySnider, Executive Director of PactCollective, toldBeautyMatter."The program highlights the importance of understanding where our packaging goeswhen we are done using it while offering an end-of-life solution for thosetrickier packages to recycle. The Beauty Drop-Off’s 1,350+ new locations forconsumers to properly dispose of their hard-to-recycle beauty empties has almostdoubled Pact's drop-off bin locations overnight."

By 2025, Ultaaims for50 percent of its product packaging to be recyclable, refillable or made frombiosourced materials by 2025.

Pact is also advancing circularity in the beauty industry through apartnership with climate-tech startupBluebird— which has yielded a turnkey solution to over 150 beauty and wellness brandsthat allows them to quickly assess the recyclability of their current packaging,and helping them learn what needs changing to keep their products as sustainableas possible. Through the platform, brands can also effectively communicateappropriate disposal and recycling guidelines to consumers through an intuitiveinteractive e-commerce widget — which provides Pact drop-off bin locations andreflects the most up-to-date recycling infrastructure.

Image credit: The New Knew

Pact’s Beauty Drop-Off program is also in place at 600Sephora stores (under the name Beauty(Re)Purposed), as well as withdozens of other beauty brands andretailers.

Sephora says Beauty (Re)Purposed has already collected more than 10,860pounds of material — the equivalent of approximately 217,220 lipstick tubes— since itslaunchin May 2023.

The beauty retailer also continues to add to its roster of refillable beautyproducts, which nowfeatures offerings from more than 45 brands — including Glow Recipe,Fenty Beauty, Ouai, Maison Margiela and Josie Maran.

Image credit:L’Occitane

Yet, with all this excitement about refillable packaging – is it in fact aviable solution or are there issues that still need to be addressed? In arecent interview inGlossy,an expert in cosmetics packaging shared her thoughts about the potential role of— and challenges with — refillables in a sustainable packaging strategy:

“Generally speaking, refills are not as sustainable as we’ve been led tobelieve. One [category] is bottle-in-a-bottle refills, where the packaging hasan insert in the form of a refillable cartridge or pot that goes into a keepsakecomponent; those tend to be the least effective of the refills, in regard tosustainability — a lot of times they can actually increase the amount of wasteand emissions, because you’re effectively producing two separate packages.Consumers have to purchase the refill four to five times before they start tosee any sort of reduction in carbon emissions or waste.

“My preferred refill strategy right now would be refill pouches. They don’t workfor every product; but with refill pouches, there’s an automatic reduction inmaterial use. Depending on the pouch, sometimes you can see up to a 90 percentreduction in plastic compared to a standard single-use component."

"Looking into the future, a lot of beauty brands have explored the idea of doingrefill stations. I don’t think our infrastructure is ready for that. There aresome big hygiene concerns, understandably; and complexities that just haven’tbeen worked out yet. But looking to the future, hopefully they will become morefeasible to implement.”

“I’ve helped launch refillable packaging for a number of brands; and based onthe conversations behind the scenes, refills still havea very low adoption rate amongst consumers. There isn’t a significant enoughprice incentive for consumers, and they’d rather just have a brand-new, fullcomponent [than save a few dollars]. Consumers just aren’t as motivated topurchase refills and use them.”

“I’ve had brands want to launch refills for products that have never been on themarket before and they have no forecasting data; and I try to discourage themfrom that, because they don’t know if this is going to be a highly repurchasedproduct.

"On the flip side, there are brands that have products that they know 50 percentof their customers repurchase every 2 to 3 months; so, there’s the potential forthe refill system to be successful with their current customers’ repurchasinghabits. It is a tricky conversation because a lot of brands want to make asplash with their sustainability implementation efforts — and right now, refillstend to make a splash.”

Published Apr 5, 2024 2pm EDT / 11am PDT / 7pm BST / 8pm CEST