According to skincare company L’Occitane En Provence, 19 tonnes of plastic are dumped in the ocean every minute, 80 per cent of which comes from land. The statistic highlight the urgent need to clean up our act, and industry sources say that this challenge has been embraced with renewed enthusiasm.

“It’s not all doom and gloom,” says Tom Szaky, CEO and founder of recycling businesses TerraCycle and Loop. “We have a personal responsibility to become conscious consumers… we are seeing a rise in consumer demand for recycling programs and brands are listening.”

Leading beauty brands, including Weleda, Burt’s Bees, Innisfree, Jurlique, Kiehl’s, L’Occitane En Provence, Lush, Deciem, and The Body Shop, now offer free recycling programs through TerraCycle. Consumers simply drop back an empty jar or bottle and TerraCycle organises to melt it down and recycle it into a new product.

Aveda recycles over 80 per cent of its waste and create its packaging from milk cartons and soda bottles, and Head & Shoulders made the world’s first recyclable shampoo bottle from beach plastic. Lush took the bold step to remove packaging entirely from half of its products.

Given that the global cosmetics industry produces around 120 billion units of packaging every year, what we do with our empty shampoo and skincare packaging ultimately adds up. “It’s about solving waste before it even becomes waste,” says Tom. “Waste has a value and it can be cycled back into our economy, rather than be disposed of in our environment.”

This zero-waste mentality has led to a new initiative called Loop, an online and in-store shopping platform allowing consumers to purchase brands in durable refillable containers.

Consumers pay a small deposit when purchasing the item and when it’s empty, the packaging can be picked up at your door or dropped back in-store to be cleaned and refiled (and the deposit is returned).

“The largest impact is changing mindsets,” says Ruth Andrade, Regenerative Impact, Earth Care & Giving at Lush. “All the plastic that we’ve avoided by selling shampoo bars makes a measurable difference to plastic waste but hopefully it invites people to reject on reducing packaging use in other areas of their lives. Changing the culture benefits the earth most.”

Compare to dirty nappies, electric toothbrushes, and cigarette butts, cosmetic product packaging is actually less complex to recycle, but often ends up in landfill due to processing problems. “The machinery can’t easily sort dark coloured plastic bottles during the recycling process, so they often end up going to landfill,” says Tom.

Lush has a “5 Pot Program” where customers are rewarded with a free Fresh Face Mask in return for bringing back five black product pots.

According to a 2015 publication by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), a typical exfoliating shower gel can contain roughly as much microplastic as the packaging it comes in.

Check labels carefully for polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephtalate (PET), polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and nylon. Brands like Weleda have the Look For The Zero logo, which means the ingredients are certified plastic-free. You can check if the brand you use has plastic-free products by searching beatthemicrobead.org/product-lists/.

An estimated 14,000 tonnes of sunscreen washes into the ocean each year. Studies have linked two chemical sunscreen ingredients (octinoxate and oxybenzone) to damaging coral reefs, promoting Hawaii to ban their use as of next year. Look for physical sunblocks that use titanium dioxide or zinc.

According to Pure Planet Club, plastic toothbrushes take as 400 years to decompose. You can either recycle toothbrushes through TerraCycle, or purchase a toothbrush made from biodegradable bamboo or cornstarch. Gillette and Venus have partnered with TerraCycle to recycle disposable razors and blades.

Using washable microfibre face cloths instead of disposable cleansing wipes or cotton balls is another easy swap to help reduce your eco footprint. “Wipes are definitely one of these modern conveniences whose negative impacts are greater than the inconvenience they bring,” says Ruth.

“We know wipes can make their way into the ocean and, since most wipes are made from plastic, it adds to the plastic pollution littering our oceans and creating danger for marine animals.”

There’s been a surge in clean make-up brands which offer more earth-friendly options by minimising packaging and using organic ingredients. Colour cosmetics are generally made of petroleum-derived artificial colours. It’s no secret that, depending on how well the raw materials are purified, these colour additives may contain heavy metals, including lead. If you’re concerned, check out ewg.org, which rates the ingredients by toxicity in more than 80,000 products.

Text: Bauer Syndication