The Maybelline Makeup Recycling Programme

From synthetic makeup sponges and brushes, lipsticks and mascaras in plastic tubes, to moisturisers and cleansers in plastic tubs and eyeshadow and makeup palettes in plastic trays: it’s hard to know where to start with the waste produced by the health and beauty industry.

Billions of products, and their packaging, are thrown out every year, alot of these products are essential to our daily lives so it's easy to write it off as necessary waste. Take a look at toothbrushes, for instance. If everyone changed their toothbrush every three months, that’s a potential 264 million brushes thrown out annually in the UK alone.

There are not many statistics available specifically for cosmetics, but Euromonitor suggests that the industry produces 120 billion units of packaging per year. That is a lot of packaging that needs to be disposed of, with 45% off all waste in the UK being recycled that means millions of units of packaging reach landfill each year.

Want to know more? Read the full article here

So the question is what can I do? Well lucky for you TerraCycle® and Maybelline have partnered to create a free recycling programme for all brands of empty makeup packaging. 

For full info visit the TerraCycle® website here

HOW IT WORKS

Drop off your empty makeup packaging 

Participating is completely free and very easy. Find your closest participating store here and bring in your empty makeup packaging to be recycled.

What you can recycle in this programme

What happens to this waste

Once we receive your empty makeup packaging, we start by sorting it by material type and cleaning it (if necessary) before the recycling process can begin. The packaging is shredded and extruded into plastic pellets. These pellets can then be used for a number of moulded rigid plastic products like benches.