How To Recycle Your Empty Beauty Products

I love my beauty products and end up finishing a lot of them. But it when it comes to throwing them away, i feel immensely guilty if i am just chucking them in the bin. Unfortunately, this kind of packaging cannot go in your normal council pick up recycling bin. So, in an effort to be kinder to the environment and the world we live in, here are the best 3 ways to recycle your beauty products and bask in the knowledge you are doing something good.

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1. Hand them over to a high street shop with a recycling scheme

High street shops have moved up a gear in the last couple of years when it comes to the environment. Whether it's shopping bags, producing sustainable products or encouraging going plastic free and recycling.
The following high street shops have introduced a recycling scheme to make it easy for the consumer to recycle their beauty products and receive a little reward in return for doing so. Lets look in more detail what some of these retail shops are offering.

John Lewis

This is my favourite place to go and hand over my empty beauty products. John Lewis has introduced 'BeautyCycle'. All you have to do is simply bring in 5 empty beauty products at any of their beauty counters and they will dispose of them responsibly. In return, as a thank you, they will give you £5 off a beauty purchase the same day. Which is a real bonus, and your empties doesn't even have to be a brand that they stock.  You do need to be a my John Lewis member. You have to sign up to be a member which is completely free and you get little perks like this and a free cake & hot drink almost every month.

​What they can accept: all beauty jars, tubes and caps (including glass), shampoo/conditioner bottles and caps, non-pressurised hair spray bottles, lip beauty products (tubes, lipstick, lip balm), mascara tubes, eye liner pencils and cases, eyeshadow tubes/palettes, concealer/foundation tubes/sticks. What they cannot accept: aerosol cans, perfume bottles, nail polish bottles, hairbrushes, toothbrushes, and any electronic items such as blow dryers and straighteners. 

Click here for more information

​The Body Shop

The Body Shop have set up their Return, Recycle, Repeat scheme. Return 5 of their empty plastic bottles, tubs, tubes & pots and in return for Love Your Body Club members, you will recieve a reward worth £5. They are working with TerraCycle who will collect all the products for recycling.

​Click here for more information.

If you don't have a John Lewis or The Body Shop near you, there are other retails shop that have introduced similar schemes. L'Occitane is another one where in return you receive 10% off your next purchase. Others include & other stories, Neal's Yard Remedies, Liberty and Kiehl.

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2. TerraCycle

Sign up for a TerraCycle Zero Waste box. For a price, they send an empty box to your house, you fill it with your empty beauty products and then send it back to them to recycle it all. Easy.
Alternatively, if you don't want to pay, they have drop off points around the country.
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​What they can accept: shampoo bottles and caps, conditioner bottles and caps, hair gel tubes and caps, non-pressurised hair spray bottles, hair paste plastic jars and caps, lip balm tubes, face soap dispensers and tubes, lotion bottles, lotion tubes, lotion dispensers and jars, non-pressurised shaving foam tubes, lipstick tubes, lip gloss tubes, mascara tubes, eye liner pencils and cases, eye shadow tubes, concealer tubes and sticks, make-up palettes (eye shadow, bronzer, blusher), sheet masks and their wrappers, face wipes and their packets, roll-on deodrants. 
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Click  here for more information and to find out where the drop off locations are.

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3. What you can recycle at home

Aerosols, cardboard packaging & glass jars can be put into your home recycling without the need of using TerraCycle or popping into your local recycling scheme shop. Make sure they are empty and make sure your glass jars are going into your glass recycling only.

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4. What you cannot recycle

Here is a list of items that unfortunately cannot be recycled regardless of where you take them and will have to go in your normal rubbish bin.
Cellophane, nail varnish, fragrance bottles, make-up brushes.

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Remember, make sure you clean, wash & empty out all of your empty products. Do let me know if you have found other ways in which you can recycle beauty products. I would love to know.
​Happy recycling!!!