Beauty Waste Recycling Guidelines

3 MINUTE READ

In partnership with Pact Collective (https://www.pactcollective.org/) we’re sharing some guidelines on how to properly sort and prepare your beauty waste for recycling.  

Sorting Your Beauty Waste

We’re outlining three categories of your beauty waste- what you can recycle with Pact, what you can recycle at home and what is unrecyclable. These categories are a good outline for what to look for when shopping for beauty products in recyclable packaging.

Before Recycling

Before recycling, make sure to disassemble, wash & dry your beauty packaging!

Recycle With Pact Collective

This group of products are the hard-to-recycle components of beauty packaging. If you can recycle something at home, that should come first. This is a second option for collecting and recycling beauty waste. As there are many components of beauty packaging that cannot be recycled curbside, Pact Collective has stepped in to give a sustainable option before heading to a landfill.

What to Recycle With Pact:

• Plastic jars/pots, tubes, sticks, and containers less than 2” in 2 dimensions

• Colored glass bottles and jars

• Metal packages 

• Lipstick and lip gloss tubes, applicators

• Mascara tubes and wands

• Plastic pencil components (e.g. for eye/lip liner, brow pencils)

• Makeup compacts (with nothing left in the pan)

• Plastic caps

• Ceramic containers

• Lotion pumps, treatment pumps, all dispensers

Recycle At Home

This group of products that can be recycled at home have a lower environmental footprint, since they don’t have to travel as far to be recycled. This should be a first option if where you reside has a curbside recycling program. This is a general outline of what’s accepted at most curbside recycling programs in the US, but check your local governance to see what’s accepted in your area.

What to Recycle At Home:

• Plastic containers #1, 2 and 5, when they are 2” in more than 2 dimensions

• Clear or frosted glass jars and bottles

• Stainless steel or aluminum 

• Cardboard & paper

Dispose of at Home, The Unrecyclable

This is obviously a last resort, but take note of these components and try to avoid them when shopping to restock your beauty cabinet next!

• Broken glass

• Aerosol cans

• Sponges

• Toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes & dental floss

• Single use wipes

• Plastic or foil safety seals

• Plastic bag & wrappers

• Plastic with foil/metal inlay

• Nail polish and nail polish remover

Image: Susteau