Be Kind Beauty

Be-kind Beauty

For all you makeup wearers out there, listen up! There is now a way to be a beauty queen as well as being conscious of our delicate environment. Introducing the Maybelline and TerraCycle makeup recycling scheme, in which you can recycle any brand of used-up makeup at the designated participating stores.

Participation is free and easy, with the only research needed is simply locating your nearest store and taking your empty makeup containers to them. The scheme is not limited to what brand or what type of makeup you can recycle, rather the opposite.

Any brand, any type of makeup. Once the makeup is received it is cleaned and sorted by material type. The packaging is shredded and turned into plastic pellets which are then recycled to make new products.

The stores that are taking part in this scheme will earn Terracycle points, which can be redeemed as financial donations to Mind, a charity that supports mental wellbeing and supports those with mental health issues. The more waste the more donations, and although there is no personal gain such as discounted makeup vouchers, there is a real sense of doing good for others with this scheme. The Maybelline Makeup Recycling Programme TerraCycle® UK · TerraCycle

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

ASDA is following suit through packaging free refill stations. This allows the customer to buy basic products such as rice and cereal without the need for single use plastic that cannot be recycled. Instead, rather, customers bring their own containers with them to fill up. The downfall is that this is only a trial run in Middleton, Leeds, but this is definitely a good start as currently ASDA alone produces over 65,000 tonnes of plastic waste each year. However, if successful there will be further continuation of the scheme throughout the country in which customers are able to choose from 30 different packaging free products. Customers in Leeds can choose from a variety of plastic free products, such as Kellogg’s cereal, PG tips tea bags, Quakers oats and Vimto squash.

There are plans to transfer the packaging free aspects to cleaning and beauty products in ASDA stores, by allowing certain Unilever products to be refilled. The store in Leeds also features recycling bins for the items that aren’t collected at kerbside by the local authority.

Richard Lim the chief executive of Retail Economics explained: "It's a step in the right direction but we are at an embryonic stage in what is likely to be a very long journey. It will be a huge learning curve and one that tests the gap between what consumers say they 'want' and what they 'do' in reality."