Garnier, the second largest brand of the L'Oreal Group, is again working with TerraCycle and DoSomething.org on a campaign to educate the younger generations on how to recycle beauty and personal care products. The campaign - Rinse, Recycle, Repeat - includes a college campus competition to collect "beauty empties" which, once collected, will be turned into pelletized lumber and create materials like picnic tables, playground equipment, benches, and garden beds to build Garnier Green Gardens. The campaign is part of L'Oreal's focus on becoming a "circular economy" - a focus which can, according to some reports, enhance sales and value for beauty brands.
By rallying young people to recycle their empties, Garnier hopes that this campaign will be able to help divert a million empty personal care and beauty products from landfills by the end of 2018.
Beauty and personal care products with a number #1 or #2 on the packaging can be recycled through curbside recycling programs, but many beauty products cannot. Items such as flexible tubes, caps, pumps for shampoo bottles, lipstick, eyeliner and many others cannot be recycled curbside and must be separated. The Garnier campaign will educate participants on the proper way to recycle these items.
The college competition kicks off next month on 50 college campuses nationwide. The college team that collects the most beauty empties by April 30th will win a garden for their community furnished by Garnier and TerraCycle. Last year, Union College won the 2017 Rinse, Recycle, Repeat College Competition.
The campaign is part of Garnier's beauty recycling program which is says has diverted more than 10 million empties from landfills. The containers have been turned into raised garden beds, benches, trash receptacles and other elements for community parks, playgrounds and gardens in Nebraska, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio and New York. Garnier and TerraCycle have installed 9 gardens throughout the US.
All cardboard cosmetic packaging used in Garnier SkinActive and hair color products is Forest Stewardship Council certified, the company says.
In 2016, a Pure Strategies survey showed that leading beauty brands that focus on sustainability find increased sales, brand enhancement, and reduced risks and costs. Unilever, for example, has reported 30% faster growth for its brands with a sustainability purpose, compared to the rest of its business, with these more sustainable products contributing nearly half of the firm’s total growth in 2015.
Garnier parent company L'Oreal says it aims to become a "circular economy" by focusing on biodiversity, ecodesign, digitalization, and material reuse and recovery.
