The beauty industry has a not-so-pretty side: plastic waste. One Ulta employee highlighted the issue with a behind-the-scenes look at what happens at her store.
What's happening?
TikToker Brianna (@brixmireles), who has 15,000 followers, posted a video in July revealing how Ulta disposes of products marked as "damages."
@brixmireles it breaks my heart to ruin makeup but its so satisfying 😭 #ulta #ultaemployee #makeup #damages #beautyadvisor #satisfying ♬ original sound - speedz!
In the clip, Brianna is seen destroying eyeshadow palettes, makeup brushes, and lip gloss tubes, even cutting some of the plastic packaging into smaller pieces before tossing them into a box — a practice other Ulta employees have also posted footage of themselves doing.
"It breaks my heart to ruin makeup," Brianna wrote in the caption, to which one commenter asked, "Why can't you guys keep the stuff?"
"It's just how the store works," Brianna responded with a shrugging emoji. "We even have to cut the cords on brand-new hair tools."
"I wish that Ulta could donate these instead of ruining new products," another commenter said.
Why is this concerning?
While damaged makeup comes with the risk of contamination, many of the products appeared to have minimal issues — if any at all — raising the question of whether Ulta could implement further policies to protect consumers while limiting resource waste and environmental impact.
The beauty industry is a well-known culprit of plastic pollution. According to Euromonitor International, manufacturers produced 7.9 billion units of rigid plastic for beauty and personal care products in 2018, as Women's Wear Daily reported.
The fact that Ulta reportedly instructs its employees to cut the plastic into smaller pieces almost assuredly means the material is headed for the landfill, where it'll take decades to hundreds of years to break down.
What is Ulta doing to reduce packaging waste?
Ulta's partnership with Pact encourages shoppers to clean and drop off their hard-to-recycle empty beauty containers, with the retailer aiming to make a dent in billions of packages that typically end their lives in dumps.
It also says on its website that it intends for 50% of the products sold in its stores to come in packaging that is either recyclable, refillable, or made from bio-sourced materials by 2025.
While The Cool Down couldn't find any specifics regarding Ulta's "damages" policies as seen in the clip, the support of waste-reduction initiatives is promising. However, plastic recycling programs are notorious for low success rates, with the majority of items ending up in landfills or as unregulated waste, leaching toxins into our ecosystems and harming or killing wildlife.
Greenpeace went as far as to call plastic recycling a "dead-end street," writing in a new report that its rates have actually declined to as low as 5% to 6%.
What can be done about plastic waste more broadly?
One of the best ways to make a dent in plastic pollution is by forgoing the material when possible. Many shoppers have already ditched single-use bags at the grocery store in favor of more durable cotton totes — a practice Ulta suggests for people perusing its stores as well.
Another way to reduce beauty waste is to check out a Zero Waste store for items like metal razors, lip balms in compostable packaging, soap bars, and more.
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