Plastic-free beauty is harder to achieve than you would think – insiders explain how they are disrupting their supply chains to reduce waste
- Buying a zero-plastic beauty product does not mean you have not contributed to landfill waste, as it may not have come from a plastic-free supply chain
- However, as people look for ways to reduce their carbon footprint, brands are being incentivised to improve their environmental credentials in far-reaching ways
A few years ago, an American blogger penned an article in which she claimed to have been able to fit the waste she generated over several years into a single mason jar.
The author, Lauren Singer, claimed that she achieved a zero-waste lifestyle through small changes, such as asking a bartender not to place a straw in her drink and carrying a reusable shopping bag.
While these are great ways to cut down on waste as an end consumer, Singer neglected to discuss upstream waste – materials generated at a product’s inception, as well as those that arise throughout the sourcing process.
This type of waste has remained largely unavoidable in our global society: unless a person lives totally off the grid, it is a daily fact of life that many are unaware of.