Marks & Spencer has launched a Beauty Takeback Scheme in over 40 UK stores through a partnership with beauty recycling experts HANDLE.
The scheme enables beauty packaging materials and components that often fall out of mainstream municipal recycling, such as lids, tubes, pumps, sachets and pipettes, to be recycled and turned into new packaging and products.
M&S customers can drop any used plastic or aluminium beauty packaging – including bottles, tubes, caps and tubs – from any retailer into dedicated boxes located within the store’s beauty section.
“We’re passionate about creating simple solutions that help our customers live lower carbon lives,” says Carmel McQuaid, head of ESG at M&S. “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. 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.”
we hope this scheme encourages customers to recycle their beauty empties to give them a second life
Adds Tom Murgatroyd, co-founder of Handle Recycling: “We are thrilled to announce our partnership with M&S, our mission is to reduce the environmental impact of Beauty Packaging and this partnership helps to elevate awareness and action toward this mission to the next level. We seek partners who wish to engage in complex issues and that have talented and committed teams to help and support the goals they set out. We aim to support the M&S Plan A initiative with projects that promote reuse and circularity, as both are challenging yet critical aspirations for us all to attain for the sake our planet and future generations.”
It is predicted that the initiative will collect over two tonnes of empty packaging from participating stores in the first 12 months.
