In four states, recycling waste from beauty products just got a whole lot easier.
Recycling company TerraCycle is teaming up with Procter & Gamble (P&G) Beauty and Walmart to offer new recycling opportunities in Arkansas, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania.
The initiative will see community recycling units at 25 Walmart locations across these four states.
How the program works
The new recycling partnership will provide free recycling bins in Walmart stores where customers can drop off their used beauty product packaging, regardless of brand or type.
"Once collected, beauty and skincare product packaging is cleaned and separated by material type," TerraCycle's website explains. "The materials are recycled into raw formats that manufacturers use to make new products."
The products do not need to have been purchased at Walmart or bear any connection to P&G to be accepted at these recycling centers.
Walmart and TerraCycle have also rolled out another recycling program, which offers larger recycling hubs for many kinds of recyclable waste, at two locations in Arkansas and one in Oklahoma.
"Walmart and P&G are working together to strengthen recycling solutions and educate their communities about the importance of sustainability by offering convenient in-store drop-off points for haircare, skincare and cosmetic packaging," CEO and Founder of TerraCycle Tom Szaky said. "The innovative collaboration offers consumers the opportunity to divert traditionally non-recyclable beauty waste from landfills in a convenient way."
The beauty industry's plastic problem
The initiative is a step in the right direction toward addressing the beauty industry's massive waste problem. The industry creates approximately 120 billion packages each year, and most of those products are made of plastic that isn't recycled.
Since 1950, less than 10% of all consumer packaged goods (CPGs) have been recycled, which means over 90% end up in landfills, causing pollution.
A recent ranking named P&G among the top five polluters of plastic worldwide, along with Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever, and Nestle.
The company joins beauty giants like Sephora and L'Occitane in taking steps toward recycling waste.
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