A Consumer’s Struggle for Sustainable Packaging
Skincare Packaging
When you visit your local drugstore, it’s easy to find beauty and skincare in their respective aisles, almost always found in boxed plastic tube and cylindrical containers. While some of these containers are recyclable, they require the consumer to rinse them out beforehand and toss them in the recycling bin, and realistically only 9% of plastic in the world is actually recycled.
I walked by St. Ives’ Mixing Bar pop-up shop in Flatiron district in NYC to find that I could customize my own facial scrub using their famed walnut shell exfoliants or substituting it with other scrubs like bamboo powder or volcanic sand and choosing the scent to pair it with. The process was quite exciting, as they’ll make the scrub at their mixing station in front of you with their lab and chemistry gear! The staff were extremely pleasant to speak with and I had a fruitful conversation with one about St. Ives’ skincare packaging choices.
Currently the skincare products they’re most known for (face scrubs, body scrubs, and body lotions) come in plastic tubes, pumps and tubs. When I visited their pop-up, they were selling these portable cleansing sticks exclusive to the pop-up, as well as lip scrubs and fragrances. I didn’t get a chance to examine the lip scrub and fragrance packaging, but all of the other packaging was plastic.
I’d love to see skincare companies move away from plastic or use only recycled plastic for their packaging. There are other skincare companies such as LUSH that incentivize customers to bring back their black recycled plastic containers and get a free fresh face mask, or Origins that has a cosmetics packaging recycling program where they accept your emptied containers to any of their stores in North America.
On Origin’s website they say,
“We created the beauty industries’ first recycling program for cosmetic packaging in 2009.”
Other companies like Juice Beauty which uses recyclable tubes for their mascara and Rituals which encourages consumers to keep their used containers and just purchase product refills. There are also package-free options at LUSH for their shampoo bars and body soap bars, which I think St. Ives can consider for their cleansing sticks.
From what one of the staff told me, the St. Ives mixing bar is the only area in the shop that washes and reuses the plastic containers after each customized scrub is made. I’m aware that St. Ives has a loyal customer base and many of us are trying to be more eco-friendly, but it’s hard to when the choices are limited in stores. Unilever, St. Ives’ parent company, prides itself on its sustainability efforts and I hope they will consider their packaging choices to reduce their carbon footprint and help consumers do the same. I did check St. Ives’ FAQs and they say they have a dedicated center to look into sustainable packaging so I’m really excited to see what comes out of that in the future!
Originally posted on A Healthy Blueprint.
Beverage Containers
How many plastic bottles do you think have ever been produced? I tried looking up this figure but couldn’t find it, but I did find that we’ve produced over 9 billion tons (8.3 billion metric tons) of plastic, ever. That’s the equivalent of 80 million blue whales.
I’m guilty of this, as I’m sure you are too, or have been at some point in your life, where you’ve gone out for the day and got thirsty. The logical thing your brain wants you to do is quench your thirst so you’ll go find the nearest vendor for a quick beverage. More often than not that drink will be packaged in a plastic bottle. I remember I was heading to the gym one time and forgot my reusable d.stil water bottle I received with my CAUSEBOX so I went to the nearest CVS to look for a beverage. Keeping in mind I wanted to purchase something in a glass bottle, I scoured the refrigerated section only to find beverages packaged in plastic bottles. Since I was going to the gym, my options were limited and I didn’t really want to buy a sugary beverage like the Arizona teas that are sometimes found in canned packaging, and there were definitely zero water bottles with sustainable packaging. What’s a consumer to do when our options in stores are limited to 90-something percent plastic bottle options?
I appreciate the fact that there are innovators looking into sustainable options, such as the edible water bubbles, or plastic-free water bottles, and others that use Tetrapak cartons that can be recycled at certain facilities. They’re thinking in the right direction and moving away from plastic to more eco-friendly options!
A few months back I discovered that one of my favorite beverage companies Snapple had gone backwards on the trend to #BeatPlasticPollution. They started manufacturing plastic bottles! I was in total shock because I usually could rely on Snapple to be the only beverage in stores in glass containers that I could safely purchase and feel like I’m not making as big of a carbon footprint. I had a conversation on Twitter with someone who handles their social media handle and the default answer they gave me as well as other consumers who criticized their packaging decision was in a nutshell:
The new plastic bottles were made to give our fans a more convenient and lightweight product that is still 100% recyclable. For our fans that prefer glass bottles, they will continue to be available in 6 and 12 packs!
I’m still not sold on this new packaging and I won’t be supporting Snapple anymore unless they stop producing their plastic bottles.
So, what do we do about these limited choices for sustainable beverage packaging choices? Make your voice heard! Call companies like Snapple out on social media for not being progressive, email and call marketing/PR offices and headquarters to ask about new developments for eco-friendly alternatives to the ever-present plastic bottles, and put your wallet where your mouth is! The best thing you can do is send a message to companies by supporting brands that do use sustainable packaging because consumer trends are always tracked, and supply will meet demand in due time.
Another great way to reduce your plastic bottle consumption is to carry your own reusable water bottle that you can fill up wherever you go. Many stores will fill up your bottle free of charge, and that way you do not have to worry about scouring the aisles of drug stores to find a non-plastic bottled beverage!
Originally posted on A Healthy Blueprint.
Contact Lenses and Solutions
I’ve been meaning to post this for a while, but as I am getting more into the zero waste movement, I find that if I try hard enough, I can find plastic alternatives for many of the products I use, from swapping plastic kitchen utensils for stainless steel or wooden ones, or grocery shopping with cloth grocery mesh and shopping bags.
When it comes to bathroom products, it gets a bit trickier. I have seen some alternatives for toothpastes, such as Bite’s toothpaste bits, Who Gives a Crap toilet paper, and LUSH deodorant bars. The one thing I haven’t seen a solution for so far is contact lenses and contact lens solution in plastic-free packaging! As a contact lens wearer for nearly 15 years, I can’t even fathom how many contact lenses I have thrown away and how many bottles of solution I have gone through. If you weren’t aware, contact lenses are made of flexible plastic, and for as long as I knew in the US, they were not recyclable, and definitely could notbe flushed down the toilet because they will break down into microplastics and end up in our oceans.
As a general rule of thumb when it comes to eye safety and hygiene, one is supposed to rinse their contact lenses after use each time to wash off any pollution or bacteria that could lead to an eye infection. I wash my contacts conservatively, way less than I should, but I still think I go through quite a few bottles per year, and while these bottles are recycled, I think the contact lens industry can do better and find alternative packaging materials. I mean, we have water bottles made from plant materials, and companies like Coca-Cola, Dasani, and Unilever are innovating and working to develop bottles that use recycled PET and plant-based materials, so why aren’t contact lens solution companies doing more to develop solutions?
I recently learned that there is a partnership between Bausch & Lomb and TerraCycle to recycle contact lens packaging and the contacts themselves! So if you haven’t had a chance to sign up and start recycling your contact lens packaging (this includes the foil you rip off, the plastic container that holds the contact lens, and the contact lenses themselves) and send them in to recycle — they even provide a free shipping label for your convenience :) In the UK, a recycling system has been rolled out where consumers can drop off their contact lenses and packaging at any participating store, where they will be later upcycled to make other products such as outdoor furniture — so cool!
I am ending this post on a positive note with these great recycling solutions, but really want to put the onus on the manufacturers to rethink their packaging choices and think of biodegradable, compostable packaging that can make for a lesser environmental impact because true proper, worldwide recycling of these materials will not happen overnight and manufacturers and producers have the responsibility of making it easier for consumers to make the right decisions.
Originally posted on A Healthy Blueprint.
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