I went looking for low-packaging beauty products at Ulta (gift card in tow) with Tanisha of I Give Beauty (for a professional’s opinion on haircare options).  

I noticed Ulta had a recycling bin for beauty packaging.
I am always curious about those because recycling is hard and complicated. So I wondered if this bin was the real deal, and if it would make me feel any better about the sea of tiny plastic packages that is an Ultas store.

The bin turned out to be part of a whole “conscious beauty” initiative that Ulta launched a few years back to keep up with the times. 
Ulta’s Concious Beauty program has 5 different markers for ways products can be “eco-friendly”.

Why do they need a recycling bin at a beauty supply store?

The bin is important because the types of plastics used in beauty packaging are frequently NOT RECYCLABLE IN YOUR CURBSIDE BIN.  

There are lots of plastics your city or county don’t want.  Like clamshells, usually not accepted. Things with mixed materials – like a mascara that has a bunch of different types of plastic – that’s not happening curbside.  

You can see what’s accepted in your bin or convenience center by looking it up with whoever picks up your recycling bin (that’s your city, if you’re within limits, and your county if outside city limits).

For me, I search “Orange County NC Reycling Guidelines” and they have a whole list.   

The group that run the recycling bins at Ulta is Pact Collective, a non-profit made up of a bunch of businesses & people in the beauty industry that are working on improving circularity in the beauty industry.  

I’d love to say Pact takes all the little bottles and they get turned back into new bottles and we’re all done now.
But that’s not how recycling works.  

Recycling won’t save us, but Refill might

Recycling is complicated.  

There’s the big bad bear of contamination.  If materials aren’t cleaned before they’re put in the bin, or if the packaging has a bunch of different material types in one unit, it won’t make it through recycling and it’ll be thrown away.  This is true for most every recycling stream, including Pact’s takeback bins – they throw away about 20% of what they pickup due to contamination.

As much as Coca-Cola’s commercials want you to believe that the plastics that make it through the process can be recycled indefinitely, they can’t.  Plastic gets worse as it gets recycled, it can’t be reused forever. 

Traditional supply chains create waste throughout the system.
Between 30% and 60% of Pact’s packaging recycling comes from obsolete inventory – aka, packaging or products that somebody bought and didn’t end up needing.
This happens all up and down the supply chain – a manufacturer bought too many bottles, down to a store that bought too much stuff. 
Stuff made to be thrown away.

The real solution to more sustainable consumerism is bulk resale.  Bulk Stores sell materials by the pound, so the consumer’s packaging can be bought once and reused. 

Pact thinks so too!  

“Reuse and refill models are the gold standard for beauty packaging. When a user is done with the product, the packaging is either returned to the producer to be sanitized and refilled, or the user refills it themselves. When executed effectively, these models minimize waste in beauty packaging.”

Two thumbs down to the beauty industry and tiny disposable packaging, but I’ve got a glimmer of hope reading through Pact’s goals and hope they help move the beauty industry along ASAP.

Check out stores in NC that have Bulk Options or are Zero Waste on the tags in the NC Green Directory

Related Points of Information:

Words like “eco-friendly” don’t mean anything.

Anything a manufacturer says about what they make is a product claim.
Product labels, statements made on websites, etc, are regulated. 
They’re reviewed by the FDA & different regulatory agencies state by state. 

(That’s why you see things on labels specific to California – like this is recognized as something that causes cancer by the State of California – CA has notoriously strict regulations about what needs to be included on product labels.)

Not all claims have the same rules.  For example, “Safe” or “Non-toxic” are big ones. 
You have to be able to back that up and be specific –
”only safe when used as directed”

Things like “eco-friendly” and “environmentally conscious” aren’t defined enough to regulate. For example, look at how specific these guidelines are from the FTC regarding “Green” Claims:  https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/eco-friendly-and-green-marketing-claims

Products in small packaging are usually worse for the environment and more expensive per ounce

Imagine a 16oz bottles of shampoo v. a 32oz bottle.  

Let’s say the plant we’re working with has a 500 lb minimum production quantity.
That’s 500 bottles of 16oz of shampoo, or 250 bottles of 32oz shampoo.  

A 16oz bottle is 32 grams of plastic – 35 lbs per a production of 500.
A 32oz bottle is 40 grams of plastic – 22 lbs per a production of 250. 

 That’s 37% less plastic to package the same amount of shampoo.  

It’s less bottles to buy overall – so making things in larger packages is less expensive per ounce.  

Let’s say a 16 oz bottle costs $8 to make – $0.50 per ounce.
The 32 oz bottle costs $14.40 to make – $0.45 per ounce.

But, of course, it’s still more total per bottle for the 32oz. So people keep churning out items in small packages, and we all end up paying more for all those tiny bottles.