In news that might be considered a step towards EPR, L’Oreal’s Garnier brand has announced a partnership with TerraCycle to collect packaging from personal care and beauty products to be recycled into playground equipment.
Garnier and TerraCycle’s Personal Care and Beauty Brigade
In order to make a significant impact worldwide, Garnier is creating a Personal Care and Beauty Brigade to hit the streets and participate in the packaging collection. Once individuals or teams sign up to be part of the Brigade at TerraCycle’s website, they ship the personal care and beauty products to TerraCycle, who then sends them off to be upcycled into eco-friendly playground equipment for kids.
TerraCycle’s payback for recycled items
If the concept doesn’t have you convinced, for every item sent back to TerraCycle by members of a Brigade get 2 TerraCycle points that can be used to make charitable donations, like providing people in need with clean drinking water. TerraCycle has been using this model with other campaigns, and has so far collected nearly 2 billion pieces of waste from nearly 19 million active participants.
Garnier’s new green personal care products
In addition to collecting personal care and beauty product packaging around the globe, Garnier is also refreshing its product line with more sustainable ingredients. Starting this month, Garnier is releasing Garnier Fructis Pure Clean which is a line of eco-friendly shampoo and conditioner that are 94% and 92% biodegradable, respectively. The bottles the shampoo and conditioner will be coming in aren’t exactly green, though: they are only made from 50% recycled materials, and are run-of-the-mill PET plastic. However, if you recycle the products as part of the new TerraCycle program after the contents have been used, the plastic will go towards creating playground equipment.
Be sure to sign up for the Personal Care and Beauty Brigade today, even if you are only going to be sending in products that you yourself have used, it is definitely a worthwhile recycling program to take part in, and promote to your friends.
