Jamie Matusow, Editor-in-Chief05.02.16
Lush takes an ecological approach to retailing, so the majority of their products are sold “naked” without wasteful packaging. They make solid products, like shampoo bars, soap and Bath Bombs that don’t require additional packaging; the water is “added” at home to activate the product. In fact, the brand says that if everyone in North America used Lush’s solid shampoo bars, it would prevent the waste of 122 million bottles from entering the environment.
When packaging is needed to protect the product, Lush uses recycled components. One of the brand’s largest recycling initiatives is its Black Pot recycling program—for every five black pots that are returned to the store, customers receive a free fresh face mask. In 12 months, more than 300,000 black pots were collected and recycled into new black pots or heavy-duty material like construction beams. These pots are made with number 5 plastic and are not easily recycled in many municipalities. Products available in this packaging include Dream Cream hand and body lotion and Ocean Salt face and body scrub.
Lush’s ethical buying manager, Heather Deeth, has been instrumental in getting North American plastics manufacturers to accept and recycle/repurpose #5 plastic, which the Black Pots are made of. In the past, this plastic had only been recycled and manufactured in Asia.
Lush's Heather Deeth (top) and
Katrina Shum.
When it comes to plastic bottles, the brand uses 100% post-consumer recycled plastic. These bottles are used for products including The Olive Branch Shower Gel, made with organic olive oil.
A Q&A with Lush
Recently Beauty Packaging’s Jamie Matusow asked Lush’s ethical buying manager, Heather Deeth, and sustainability manager, Katrina Shum, more about the brand’s goals concerning packaging, and learned that their eco-friendly philosophy extends from shopping bags packing peanuts.
Jamie Matusow: Is environmentally responsible packaging part of your DNA? What was the impetus behind it?
Heather Deeth: Creating Naked and packaging-free products at Lush is at the core of our philosophy. We'd rather put our efforts into what goes inside of our products instead of packaging. We use as little packaging in our Lush shops as possible, and give you the choice to go completely Naked. When we say “Naked” we are referring to our products that you can buy with absolutely no packaging at all—like our Bath Bombs, bubble bars, massage bars, body butters and solid shampoo bars.
For the limited packaging that we do use, we support efforts toward building a circular economy. We use biodegradable options for packaging peanuts and cellophane wrap. Biofoam is one of our most well-known compostable materials used for packing. Rather than the typical Styrofoam packing peanuts that typically exist, our packing peanuts are a non-GMO corn based bioresin that dissolves in water to be easily composted.
We also use 100% recycled content material for plastic, paper or cardboard. Through our take back program, we offer customers a free fresh face mask for every 5 black pots they return. These black pots are then returned to our manufacturing facilities to be recycled into new black pots and construction materials. Even our shopping bags that our customers take their product home in are 100% post-consumer recycled paper.
JM: How has consumer interest/acceptance evolved over the years?
Katrina Shum: Many customers shop at Lush because they support our ethics and values as a company. Many of our customers choose to adopt more sustainable gift-wrapping alternatives, as well. We offer knot wraps, gifts wrapped in reusable scarves. We encourage customers to reuse the scarves as gift wrap, decoration or as an accessory. Not only are our knot wraps reusable, they are also made of recycled plastic bottles or organic cotton. To encourage the use of reusable packaging for our Naked products, we offer reusable tins for solid shampoo and body butter bars as well.
JM: What are the challenges faced on the supplier and brand sides?
KS: Some of the challenges include sourcing local/North American manufacturers for our packaging needs. Working with recycled materials is still a new process for many manufacturers so we need to continuously work with our vendors to expand their capacity to work with recycled materials. Farther back into the supply chain, we’re working to find vendors who can get high quality recycled content feedstock (the recycled plastic resin that gets turned into our black pots, clear bottles, etc.).
We’re also increasing recycling and composting services available through the malls and municipalities where our shops operate and where our customers live. There is a strong need to further build the capacity, availability and technology for recycling and material recovery in more cities and municipalities across North America. Overall, the supply of recycled materials from North America has only become an option for us in the past few years. Before then we had to purchase from Asia where most of our plastic waste is shipped. By improving the recycling capacity here in North America we have the opportunity to really reduce the carbon impact and support using plastics that are already in existence.
On the paper side, we only use post-consumer recycled paper as well. It is increasingly difficult to source sufficient recycled paper due to several paper mill closures in the past few years, and with less paper in circulation as digital options become more popular. We work very closely with our suppliers through the entire supply chain to build relationships and secure sufficient supply.
JM: How do you imagine the future of beauty and personal care in regard to environmentally responsible packaging and practices—from brand, consumer and retailer perspectives?
HD: When it comes to packaging, we continue to believe that less is more. Reducing the overall amount of unnecessary packaging across the beauty/personal care industry would be a win for all.
Where packaging is required, there have been some great evolutions in sustainable packaging with new compostable materials, alternatives to petroleum-based plastics, refillable and reusable options, mushroom and plant-based materials, and even trials of plastics made from carbon sequestered from the atmosphere.
JM: Please include any additional info you think our readers would be interested in.
KS: A few interesting initiatives: We worked with our suppliers to reduce the weight of our clear bottles which saves 3 metric tons a year of plastic. In 2015 we received back 880,000 black pots (approx. 14 metric tons of plastics) from our customers which were converted to new black pots. In 2014, we mixed 200 kgs of plastics collected from the ocean (off the coast of British Columbia) into our black bottles.
When packaging is needed to protect the product, Lush uses recycled components. One of the brand’s largest recycling initiatives is its Black Pot recycling program—for every five black pots that are returned to the store, customers receive a free fresh face mask. In 12 months, more than 300,000 black pots were collected and recycled into new black pots or heavy-duty material like construction beams. These pots are made with number 5 plastic and are not easily recycled in many municipalities. Products available in this packaging include Dream Cream hand and body lotion and Ocean Salt face and body scrub.
Lush’s ethical buying manager, Heather Deeth, has been instrumental in getting North American plastics manufacturers to accept and recycle/repurpose #5 plastic, which the Black Pots are made of. In the past, this plastic had only been recycled and manufactured in Asia.
Lush's Heather Deeth (top) and
Katrina Shum.
A Q&A with Lush
Recently Beauty Packaging’s Jamie Matusow asked Lush’s ethical buying manager, Heather Deeth, and sustainability manager, Katrina Shum, more about the brand’s goals concerning packaging, and learned that their eco-friendly philosophy extends from shopping bags packing peanuts.
Jamie Matusow: Is environmentally responsible packaging part of your DNA? What was the impetus behind it?
Heather Deeth: Creating Naked and packaging-free products at Lush is at the core of our philosophy. We'd rather put our efforts into what goes inside of our products instead of packaging. We use as little packaging in our Lush shops as possible, and give you the choice to go completely Naked. When we say “Naked” we are referring to our products that you can buy with absolutely no packaging at all—like our Bath Bombs, bubble bars, massage bars, body butters and solid shampoo bars.
For the limited packaging that we do use, we support efforts toward building a circular economy. We use biodegradable options for packaging peanuts and cellophane wrap. Biofoam is one of our most well-known compostable materials used for packing. Rather than the typical Styrofoam packing peanuts that typically exist, our packing peanuts are a non-GMO corn based bioresin that dissolves in water to be easily composted.
We also use 100% recycled content material for plastic, paper or cardboard. Through our take back program, we offer customers a free fresh face mask for every 5 black pots they return. These black pots are then returned to our manufacturing facilities to be recycled into new black pots and construction materials. Even our shopping bags that our customers take their product home in are 100% post-consumer recycled paper.
JM: How has consumer interest/acceptance evolved over the years?
Katrina Shum: Many customers shop at Lush because they support our ethics and values as a company. Many of our customers choose to adopt more sustainable gift-wrapping alternatives, as well. We offer knot wraps, gifts wrapped in reusable scarves. We encourage customers to reuse the scarves as gift wrap, decoration or as an accessory. Not only are our knot wraps reusable, they are also made of recycled plastic bottles or organic cotton. To encourage the use of reusable packaging for our Naked products, we offer reusable tins for solid shampoo and body butter bars as well.
JM: What are the challenges faced on the supplier and brand sides?
KS: Some of the challenges include sourcing local/North American manufacturers for our packaging needs. Working with recycled materials is still a new process for many manufacturers so we need to continuously work with our vendors to expand their capacity to work with recycled materials. Farther back into the supply chain, we’re working to find vendors who can get high quality recycled content feedstock (the recycled plastic resin that gets turned into our black pots, clear bottles, etc.).
We’re also increasing recycling and composting services available through the malls and municipalities where our shops operate and where our customers live. There is a strong need to further build the capacity, availability and technology for recycling and material recovery in more cities and municipalities across North America. Overall, the supply of recycled materials from North America has only become an option for us in the past few years. Before then we had to purchase from Asia where most of our plastic waste is shipped. By improving the recycling capacity here in North America we have the opportunity to really reduce the carbon impact and support using plastics that are already in existence.
On the paper side, we only use post-consumer recycled paper as well. It is increasingly difficult to source sufficient recycled paper due to several paper mill closures in the past few years, and with less paper in circulation as digital options become more popular. We work very closely with our suppliers through the entire supply chain to build relationships and secure sufficient supply.
JM: How do you imagine the future of beauty and personal care in regard to environmentally responsible packaging and practices—from brand, consumer and retailer perspectives?
HD: When it comes to packaging, we continue to believe that less is more. Reducing the overall amount of unnecessary packaging across the beauty/personal care industry would be a win for all.
Where packaging is required, there have been some great evolutions in sustainable packaging with new compostable materials, alternatives to petroleum-based plastics, refillable and reusable options, mushroom and plant-based materials, and even trials of plastics made from carbon sequestered from the atmosphere.
JM: Please include any additional info you think our readers would be interested in.
KS: A few interesting initiatives: We worked with our suppliers to reduce the weight of our clear bottles which saves 3 metric tons a year of plastic. In 2015 we received back 880,000 black pots (approx. 14 metric tons of plastics) from our customers which were converted to new black pots. In 2014, we mixed 200 kgs of plastics collected from the ocean (off the coast of British Columbia) into our black bottles.
