How To Recycle Makeup & Reuse Your Beauty Products Properly

More of us are invested in preserving our future and our planet. In terms of beauty, this means making sure we recycle makeup compacts, mascara tubes, moisturiser pots, shampoo bottles and all the other beauty products we've finished. Or at the very least, dispose of them properly. 

So, of all the bonkers commemorative dates in the calendar (looking at you, Hug Your Cat Day), one that deserves all the airtime it can get, is Global Recycling Day, which happens every year on 18th March. 

If we're honest, most of us would have to admit we're not doing a good enough job of it. We're aware of the problem – the seas are filling with plastic and global emissions continue to rise – but the solution is much trickier.

Statistics show we've got better at recycling our kitchen waste (research from Garnier found the UK recycles 90% of kitchen waste). As for our bathroom and beauty waste, we've got a long way to go (we only recycle 50%) – but why?

When it comes to ditching our food containers, with help from the pamphlets that get dropped through our doors, we’re pretty clued up. We separate, rinse and bin. But when it comes to our beauty products, we're pretty stumped. In fact, data from Terracycle shows that 4.5million Brits find recycling their bathroom waste too confusing. Caps have to be separated, labels have to be removed, pumps need to be ditched and a whole bunch of products are considered hazardous, even when empty, making it difficult to recycle makeup and other beauty products.

So how can we reduce the amount of recyclable beauty products that end up in landfill without setting up at-home recycling systems? 

Well, for starters, we can clarify what goes where, and with the help of Currentbody, we've compiled the ultimate guide to recycling the contents of your bathroom shelf.

Currently recyclable:

Hairdryer - must be taken to a recycling centre
Plastic bottles - as long as they have one of the recyclable plastic symbols on the back, they can be put in your normal recycling bin. Ensure you remove the plastic cap, and wash and dry the bottle thoroughly
Cans - both steel or aluminium are recyclable and brands are using both materials more and more to create more sustainable products. Make sure the can is completely empty and detach any removable parts
Glass bottles - glass is recyclable, but make sure to remove any plastic components like the pump, label or lid.

Partly recyclable:

Mascara - whereas mascara tubes are often made from recyclable material, the wands typically aren't recyclable but they can be donated to animal sanctuaries.
Foundation bottles - pumps are not recyclable. If the bottle is glass you can recycle it, but ensure you've washed and dried it first.
Makeup palettes - most palettes contain magnets and mirrors which aren't recyclable, so these parts need to be disposed of separately.

Not currently recyclable:

Make-up wipes - unless labelled as biodegradable, makeup wipes are not recyclable. Consider buying reusable makeup pads or cotton pads instead.
Nail varnish bottles - due to the hazardous toxins found in nail varnish, the glass bottles are not recyclable, even when thoroughly rinsed.
Make-up brushes - neither animal hair nor vegan brushes are currently recyclable.

And there are more ways to help…

Drop off your empties

Still unsure on what goes where? To save you researching your local recycling rules and having to sort through your empty beauty bottles at home, you can take them to a local beauty recycling drop-off point. A number of brands have partnered with national waste companies to do the hard work, although there may be products that aren't accepted, depending upon the programme, so just read up before you go. 

Maybelline has teamed up with Terracycle to provide beauty recycling bins in Tesco and Sainsbury’s, Superdrug, and Boots, so you can drop off your empties before you do your grocery shop. Most makeup is accepted (including eyeshadow palettes, foundation, mascara and lipstick) however makeup brushes, aerosol deodorant and nail polish is currently not being accepted.

Boots are offering advantage card points when you bring 5 empties to one of their in-store recycling bins and spend £10 on products. John Lewis will accept a broad range of  empty beauty packaging (excluding glass containers and aerosols) with it's BeautyCycle initiative. And if you're a My John Lewis member, you’ll get £5 off when you spend £20 or more on Beauty that day too. 

And, Origins has partnered with WasteCare for the ‘Return to Origins’ service. You can drop off your beauty empties, from any cosmetics brand, at an Origins counter and WasteCare will clean and separate the packaging according to materials and work to recycle it accordingly.

Rethink single-use products

Previously 1.8 billion plastic-stemmed cotton buds were being used in England each year – much of which was getting flushed down the loo and landing on our beaches. New government regulation (brought in in October 2020) means plastic cotton buds have now been banned in favour of reusable or biodegradable substitutes which can go in your compost. Of course it also coincided with a global pandemic and single use PPE has posed an enormous problem to the environment. While PPE was essential, we can all do our own bit to mitigate the damage by limiting the single-use products we buy. Single use face wipes and cotton buds can easily be switched out for reusable face cloths and washable cotton pads.

Don't bin your hair tools

If your beloved hair straighteners have finally given up on you, don’t dump them in the rubbish bin as they create a huge amount of waste that can't decompose. Instead, check with your local recycling centre to see if they can receive your electrical tools before dropping them off. Or make use of Cloud 9's recycling scheme. The brand launched the industry’s first styling tool recycling scheme to save as many styling tools as they can from landfill. Head to their website, fill out a form and they'll send you a pre-paid label to take with you to the post office. Once at the Cloud Nine HQ, all items are manually depolluted. All parts that can be recycled are removed and separated before the items are shredded. The components are then broken down back into their raw materials and sent for smelting. Any tools that have life left in them are refurbished, provided with a new manufacturer’s warranty, and resold to a new home for a discounted price, (here).

Reduce your waste

Last but not least, remember, recycling can only get you so far. If we continue to create more waste (even if we're recycling it) we're not really solving the problem. The best thing we can do is to reduce our footprint where we can by choosing refillable products (check out our favourites here) or products that can be washed and re-used, or even better, zero waste products. 

Read up on what all the recycling symbols on the back of your beauty products mean and find out more about the best plastic-free beauty brands in the biz.