Marks & Spencer has announced a partnership with beauty recycling experts, Handle, to launch a Beauty Takeback Scheme in over 40 stores across Britain.
The scheme will enable 'hard-to-recycle' beauty packaging materials and components that commonly end up in landfill to be recycled and turned into new packaging and products.
From June of this year, M&S customers will be able to return any form of plastic or aluminium beauty packaging from bottles and tubes to caps, pumps, and tubs, from any retailer, by dropping their used beauty packaging into dedicated boxes located within the store’s beauty section.
The initiative is estimated to collect over two tonnes of empty beauty packaging from participating retailers, within the first 12 months.
Circular System
The Handle programme is designed to build towards a circular system for M&S beauty, where new products and packaging are created from the materials collected.
The company works with retailers, brands and manufacturers to seek better end of life options for beauty packaging such as lids, tubes, pumps. sachets and pipettes that often fall out of mainstream municipal recycling.
"Plastic is one of the biggest challenges facing the beauty industry and whilst there is still lots more to do, we hope this scheme encourages customers to recycle their beauty empties to give them a second life and reduce the amount of packaging that goes to landfill," said Carmel McQuaid, head of ESG at M&S.
"Alongside our other schemes, including Shwopping and plastic takeback, it’s one of the many ways we’re driving the circular economy on our roadmap to net zero.”
© 2023 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest packaging news. Article by Robert McHugh. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
