THG’s consumer recycling scheme that targets hard to recycle beauty and cosmetic packaging is evolving, allowing brand partners to offset new packaging waste fees.
The group, which owns brands including Lookfantastic and MyProtein, aims to help tackle the beauty industry’s waste problem – which sees an estimated 120 million units of packaging thrown away each year.
Through established partners, recycle:me provides data that offers insight into consumer recycling behaviour, and crucially supports new modulated Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR fees) – a policy whereby retailers must take financial responsibility for the end-of-life management of products and packaging.
The scheme will tackle hard to recycle beauty and cosmetic packaging and is targeting one million units recycled within the first year of launch.
In conjunction with THG’s leading brands, such as Cult Beauty, recycle:me will allow consumers to recycle any brand’s cosmetic packaging at no cost using a Royal Mail doorstep collection service.
Mark Jones, chief sustainability officer at THG, said: “For brands, recycling schemes are incredibly complex and costly. With recycle:me, we are offering our brand partners a cohesive industry approach that provides the level of data needed under new EPR regulations.”
The initiative will be run in partnership with MYGroup, a waste management company, with the packaging repurposed and used for new projects such as beauty packaging research and development or creating equipment for schools.
Steve Carrie, director at MYGroup, added: “The beauty industry faces a significant issue in tackling its waste problem. Although many consumers are keen to do their part, the UK recycling system often causes confusion and means that only 9% of cosmetic packaging is recycled, according to the British Beauty Council. As the market leader in cosmetics recycling, we’re proud to be partnering with THG and its premium beauty brands to make recycling easy and accessible through recycle:me.”
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