Great News: You Can Now Recycle Your Used Beauty Products at MECCA and David Jones

April 22 is Earth Day and in celebration of this event, two of Australia’s biggest retailers have announced some exciting news. Both MECCA and David Jones have teamed up with TerraCycle — an organisation that specialises in hard-to-recycle items — to offer beauty recycling services.

Following on from a TerraCycle trial within a selection of MECCA stores that started in October 2019, the beauty retailer has collected a total of 1,024kg of beauty waste with an estimated 10,240 empty beauty containers diverted from landfill during the 14-month trial.

Rather than throwing away well-loved and used bottles, pots, tubes and palettes, from April 27, you’ll be able to drop your empty beauty products into a labelled bin or pass them onto a team member at registered MECCA, Mecca Cosmetica and Mecca Maxima stores across Australia and New Zealand. For more information on what can and can’t be recycled as well as which stores are participating in the program, visit the MECCA website.

David Jones has also launched a recycling program, called BeautyCycle, that launched in David Jones stores nationally today, April 22. TerraCycle recycling boxes are now stationed in David Jones stores, with the following materials being able to be recycled: soft plastic, rigid plastic and pumps, glass bottles, jars and pots, masks and packaging as well as makeup products including foundation bottles, lipsticks, eyeshadows, compacts and mascaras.

Once collected, these products are sorted, shredded, melted down and turned into plastic pellets that can substitute virgin plastics to make new items.

“As a community, we are acutely aware of the fragility of our planet and this is increasingly playing a role in influencing our shopping habits and what we expect from the brands that we choose to support,” Rachel Duffy-Packer, general manager of beauty at David Jones, said in a press release.

“Our customers have responded well to our Mindfully Made shoppable edit online. We can see their values driving their shopping behaviour, and their desire to do more. Our partnership with TerraCycle® for our BeautyCycle program will ultimately help to break the cycle of waste in the beauty industry as together we strive to contribute to a more environmentally conscious future.”

To make your own beauty practices more sustainable, recycle your beauty containers at David Jones or MECCA instead of throwing them into the bin, where they will sit in landfill for decades to come. Small steps help make big changes!