The international cosmetics brand Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics has launched a new recycling programme called "Bring it Back" for the German market. Customers are now entitled to a 50 cent discount on their shopping for every item of Lush packaging returned. In contrast to the usual German deposit system, there is no extra charge for the packaging when buying a Lush product. Lush essentially just buys back the packaging. The company hopes that this will lead to an improved recycling quota for their own packaging, helping to keep it within the circular economy. The initial aim is to increase the number of returns in Germany to 30 per cent, up from 14 per cent in the last financial year in 2021.

Old Becomes New

All collected packaging will be shipped to a European partner located close to the company's Croatian manufacturing facility. There, the brand is cooperating with a regional plastics plant where the packaging is to be sorted, cleaned and processed. A packaging producer located nearby then manufactures new cosmetics containers for Lush from PP, PET and HDPE reclaimed from the old packaging. According to Lush Deutschland, in the long term, it hopes to find regional partners close to its production plant in Düsseldorf.

Successful Start in the UK

The brand already launched this scheme in Great Britain and Ireland in 2021. Since then, more than 569,000 containers have been returned by customers, the company adds. It is estimated that this has prevented 13 tonnes of plastic from potentially ending up in landfills or being burned.

Source, photo: Lush