Eliminate Beauty Waste with TerraCycle

This June, we’re celebrating Better Beauty Month – an entire month dedicated to educating the community about the problem of waste in the beauty industry, and highlighting the solutions consumers can access to make their beauty habits more sustainable. 

As we mentioned last week, beauty waste is one of the trickiest waste streams to tackle because of the complex nature of beauty packaging.  Here at TerraCycle, we work with some of the biggest brands in Australia and New Zealand to establish free recycling programs and reduce the amount of rubbish reaching landfills.

So how is beauty waste processed?

TerraCycle weighs all materials upon receipt to monitor volumes collected. Once a shipment is checked in, the contents are visually inspected for compliance to ensure they contain only the waste accepted by that specific Free Recycling Program. 

Items are sorted into individual material streams, consolidated into bulk bags and prepared for processing. Compliant waste is manually and mechanically sorted by material type such as plastics category, glass,  metals etc.  Once sorted, materials are cleaned, size reduced and converted into new usable commodity materials such as plastic pellets and regrind, paper pulp and metal alloys.

Materials are then used to manufacture new products such as outdoor furniture and decking, community garden beds, plastic shipping pallets, watering cans, storage containers and bins.

How can you recycle beauty waste with TerraCycle?

TerraCycle covers all of your beauty needs across haircare, skincare and cosmetic recycling. There are loads of ways you can recycle your beauty products through TerraCycle – check out our breakdown below to find out which of our programs suits your needs.

In-store

What could be easier than dropping off your beauty empties in-store as you purchase new ones? We partner with major retailers in Australia such as David Jones, MECCA and Maybelline in all Priceline stores – to recycle any brand of used makeup and skincare packaging.

In New Zealand, you can visit select David Jones stores, any MECCA and any Chemist Warehouse in New Zealand thanks to Maybelline to recycle your empty beauty products.

In-store beauty recycling AND refill

Go a step further by recycling or refilling your used beauty products in-store. This is a  great way to get extra use out of your product’s packaging as opposed to creating something new. We partner with brands such as L’Occitane and Kiehls who offer great in-store recycling and refill options for your favourite products.

Ship in programs for all brands 

It may not always be possible to go in-store to recycle. This can be due to a number of factors – time, accessibility, and convenience. The good news? No matter where you are in Australia you can participate in one of our free beauty recycling programs from the comfort of your home. 

Garnier (in Australia and New Zealand) and OLAY (in Australia) have free national recycling programs that accept any brand of skincare products. To get involved, all you need to do is sign up to the program online, collect your empty beauty products until you’ve filled a box and print off a free shipping label to send them to TerraCycle to be recycled. 

The same goes with any brand of used hair care & colour packaging and any brand of used hair care aerosols thanks to Schwarzkopf’s partnership with TerraCycle in Australia and New Zealand.

Own-brand ship in

If you’re dedicated to using a particular brand but cringe knowing that their products aren’t kerbside recyclable, TerraCycle has partnered with a number of brands that allow you to collect their own brand of beauty products and send them back to TerraCycle to be recycled for free. 

In Australia, TerraCycle has partnerships with the likes of Sukin, Jurlique, MooGoo, Rodan + Fields, Edible Beauty and Burts Bees.

In New Zealand, TerraCycle has partnered with Two Islands and Jeuneora to recycle their own brand of products.

We’re constantly launching new programs, so don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter and stay tuned by following us on Facebook and Instagram in Australia and New Zealand.