A frustrated Ulta employee reached out to Reddit for advice on trying to donate excess products.
The Ulta employee also works at a shelter and wanted to know if there was a way to have companies like Ulta donate items instead of throwing them into the dumpster.
What's even more frustrating is that most of the items that get tossed in a dumpster are perfectly fine and haven't expired. The Redditor listed examples of unnecessary items that get thrown out, including unopened pillowcases and brand-new hair tools the company no longer wants to sell.
"I don't understand why Ulta (or if it's a brand by brand basis, then the brands) don't donate these products to shelters!" wrote the Ulta employee.
Redditors agreed the company's practices were wasteful and discussed the problem of overconsumption.
"The reason why I didn't ever work at Ulta," wrote one user. "Couldn't stand those videos of people destroying the unused products & throwing them out."
"They should honestly just stop producing so much stuff," commented another Redditor. "The beauty industry is just so over saturated and flooded with too many products."
In the beauty industry especially, waste is a massive problem. Each year, the global beauty industry generates over 120 million units of waste from packaging alone, according to reports by Zerra & Co. That waste ends up rotting in landfills, where it releases harmful gases that contribute to rising global temperatures.
When companies like Ulta offer their customers the opportunity to return products, it fuels dumpster tossing, only exacerbating the already significant waste problem. Opened beauty products are thrown out, but sometimes, even unopened returns get thrown away.
🗣️ Which of these factors would most effectively motivate you to recycle old clothes and electronics?
🔘 Giving me money back 💰
🔘 Letting me trade for new stuff 👕
🔘 Making it as easy as possible ⚡
🔘 Keeping my stuff out of landfills 🗑️
🗳️ Click your choice to see results and speak your mind
Ulta has also been called out for its DIFs — destroy in field — policy, which requires employees to purposely damage and throw out unopened beauty products. This practice is not only detrimental to the environment, but it's also unfair to customers. Companies raise their prices to make up the profit loss from tossing these products out.
Redditors continued to discuss the problem of waste across industries.
"This is not just an Ulta problem," responded another Redditor. "It's the same as restaurants that throw away food at the end of the night instead of donating it. There is so much waste in this country, it's really sad."
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