Life Hack: How to recycle your beauty empties and earn free replacements at the same time
We are marking Sustainability Month this May and while recycling is a non-negotiable for most of us, the hack I'm sharing this week is how to make the most of loyalty schemes that take hard-to-recycle beauty products off your hands for recycling, and offer points you can convert into free products to replenish your supplies.
In recent years, we have all — thankfully — become more conscious of the three Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle. Recycling in particular is an area we are deeply familiar with, from sorting our household bins into waste, compost, glass and recycling, to taking part in the Re-Turn scheme over the past year.
The Re-Turn scheme in particular has highlighted how recycling can help you to save money. For example, I add the money from my returned cans and bottles to a gift card for my local supermarket to make a family Christmas dinner feel free at the end of the year.
While saving money is one very useful outcome, you can also be smart about your recycling in other ways, so it gets you free products to replace what you've been recycling. Here's how two big brands are incentivising customers to recycle their empty products.
Boots
CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB
Many products cannot be popped into your recycling bin due to being travel size, the materials they're made from and other factors. Wondering how best to recycle that mascara or lipstick tube? Or even your used toothpaste tube? Take the stress out of guessing and bring them to your local Boots.
Recycle at Boot allows you to bring empty beauty, health, wellness, and dental products from any brand that can't be recycled at home while rewarding you for recycling.
To take part and earn Advantage Card points, download the Recycle at Boots app and sign up. Upload images of your eligible recyclables, and once these are verified on the app, you can drop them off in your local store. Scan the QR code in the shop and deposit at least five items to instantly earn a reward voucher. With this voucher, you can earn 500 points when used with a spend of €10 or more.
The scheme uses Scan2Recycle technology to help the environment and reward customers. It is aimed at hard-to-recycle products but will also accept most hard-to-recycle products sold in Boots stores.
After dropping off the empties, they will be washed and sorted, ready for recycling into new usable products. Any remaining multi-material items will be recycled into Stormboard, a composite construction board material, similar to plywood, which has a lot of different uses. Organics will be processed through an industrial organics processor. Nothing goes to landfill, and nothing is incinerated.
Sculpted by Aimee
Aimee Connolly's popular makeup brand encourages the recycling of empty products through ReSculpted, helping customers earn points for the Beauty Club loyalty programme (sculptedbyaimee.com/pages/sculpted-beauty-club). Members of this can earn points with purchases and other activities, including recycling empty makeup and skincare products.
For every five empties you bring to them, you will earn 1,000 points, which can be redeemed on products, money off vouchers, and more. However, sheet masks and aerosols are not accepted for this.
There is no need to rinse the packaging as long as there is no excess product inside. They can be returned by post, even if they have been cut up to use up every bit of the product inside.
Pack the empties — at least five — and visit An Post Returns. Select Sculpted By Aimee from the retailer dropdown and choose ReSculpted as your reason for return. Enter your full name and email address, and remember to include a small note inside the parcel with your email and name to ensure you receive your Sculpted Rewards points.
Products can also be recycled in-store. There is a recycling facility at their Grafton Street store for customers to recycle their used Sculpted by Aimee products and earn reward points.
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