Sephora, the largest prestige beauty omni-retailer in the U.S. and Canada, has partnered with Pact Collective a nonprofit collective, to reduce beauty and wellness packaging waste.
Thus was born Beauty (Re)Purposed, Sephora’s first North American empties collection program, which will involve more than 600 stores across the U.S. and Canada.
Sephora’s desire is to make the process of recycling cosmetic packaging more approachable and accessible for consumers.
These products currently end up in landfills because they are difficult to recycle due to their small size and conformation consisting of heterogeneous materials that do not fit into traditional recycling supply chains.
Together, the beauty and wellness industries generate 120 billion packages every year, most of which aren’t accepted in curbside recycling programs.
To help reduce the amount of packaging ending up in landfills and oceans, Beauty (Re)Purposed allows consumers to drop-off their empty beauty packaging at any Sephora retail store, no matter the brand, and give their beauty products a second life.
Once enough volume has been collected, Pact will sell the collected materials to a partner where they’ll be turned into carpet, pallets, asphalt and new packaging.
Sephora’s partnership with Pact represents a key step in embarking on a more well-structured change aimed at designing packaging that takes their end-of-life into consideration from the start.
Bringing awareness to beauty’s packaging problem will help the industry create smarter packaging in the future while empowering consumers to dispose of their empties properly.

Source and image: newsroom.sephora.com

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