Bath and beauty giant Lush plans to pay its customers money to recycle the plastic packaging of its cosmetic products. Pressure is mounting on companies worldwide to adopt the circular economy model.
From now until the end of July, Lush will be deducting a dollar from the purchase price of every piece of plastic packaging they bring into stores for their cosmetic products in Australia and New Zealand.
Lush is expanding its year-round closed-loop packaging incentive program by giving customers the opportunity to return packaging from other manufacturers.
Retail manager Brittany Gian said this was part of an initiative to encourage customers to switch to “naked,” or packaging-free, products.
“Packaging is very common in the beauty industry and often it is the packaging that we are really paying for,” she said.
“We encourage people to skip that packaging altogether and come into the store and try one of our shampoo bars or a solid facial cleanser.”
This comes amid growing pressure from customers and stakeholders around the world to adapt their business models to circular economy concepts, a business method that involves recovering and regenerating products and materials at the end of their life.
Known for its fizzy bath bombs, shower gels and solid shampoo bars, Lush claims that the brand’s packaging-free products have saved the production of more than 13,800 tonnes of plastic.
The company said 50 percent of its core product range was “naked.”