Mother Nature has us all beat when it comes to years on this earth, and it seems that lately the world is coming together to at least think about a new beauty regimen for the old dear. While thinking is good, acting is even better and I know you are doing what you can to reduce, reuse and recycle. I bought a couple of fabric shopping bags at a favorite market and the other day I took them with me to another store. To their credit, the checker and bagger laughed along with me at my little faux pas, and even cheerfully filled the bags emblazoned with the other guy’s logo. I went home and put a plain canvas bag into the trunk of my car.
For its part, the beauty industry is thinking about our planet, too, with many companies implementing packaging initiatives and sustainability programs. Efforts range from using more recycled material content in bottles and boxes to offering refillable eye, cheek and lip color compacts.
It always bothers me when disposing of a shampoo or lotion bottle that I can toss the bottle itself into the recycling bin but have to put the cap into the garbage because the material used to make it is not on my city’s recycling program. Now Aveda, with its long history of earth awareness, has announced a program to accept rigid polypropylene plastic caps for recycling by its vendors into new caps and bottles. Aveda Caps Recycling kicked off during Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2009, and the company hopes to be using the recycled plastic in bottles later this year.
Cargo Cosmetics started a bit of a revolution a couple of years ago by being the first to use corn-based plastic in its lipstick tubes, making them compostable. The company also packages the tubes in boxes made with cardboard incorporating wildflower seeds to be planted in your garden. Other beauty companies are taking up the use of corn-based plastics as well as recycled and recyclable box materials.
Nvey Eco, a beauty company producing certified organic products, offers an Eco-exchange program for used primary components including compacts, bottles and lipstick and mascara tubes.
For perfume lovers, New York’s Bond No. 9 now offers a bottle recycling program, inviting customers to bring in any kind of empty perfume bottle in exchange for a free purse spray with the purchase of a Bond No. 9 fragrance.
These are just a few examples of beauty industry efforts to answer consumer desire for products and packaging that consider the value of precious natural resources and the health of our planet, and let us participate in the solution in new ways.
