According to Zero Waste Week, 120 billion units of packaging are produced by the beauty industry every year. Let that sink in. 95% of this is thrown out after one use, while the rest ends up in landfills and the ocean. The upshot is a loss of 18 million acres of forest annually, and so many toxins poisoning marine life that the United Nations predicts we’ll have more plastic than fish in our seas by 2050. If it’s not the bottles, it’s the exterior wrapping each product comes in, but change is afoot.
The publicising of such rabid plastic consumption means that consumer demand to take sustainability seriously is high. It’s also why plastic-free beauty brands are standing in solidarity, and why we’re keen to showcase them for Plastic Free July – a global movement that strives to fight plastic pollution.
We Are Paradoxx, a label whose founder Yolanda Cooper also founded Plastic Free Beauty Day which takes place annually on June 17th, uses aluminium packaging which can be infinitely recycled without losing its form and grade (unlike plastic), luxury fragrance brand Floral Street has traded in traditional plastic packaging for cartons created from sustainably sourced pulp, and subscription deodorant service Wild offers completely natural deodorants housed in anodised aluminium cases. Granted, none are a catch-all cure for the adverse effects on our planet, but they’re a good place to start.
The need for action is, in fact, more important now than ever. While steps have certainly been taken over the past few years, the Coronavirus pandemic set us back. We all, understandably, took to using single-use masks, and medical apparatus including vaccines and latex gloves haven’t helped – some are even coining the crisis the ‘Plastic Pandemic’.