Ways to Lower Your Beauty Waste

ways to lower your beauty waste

Ever wonder about how to lower your beauty waste or lower your beauty consumption? Over the years, I’ve challenged myself over the years to make small, practical changes in my habits and consumption. Beauty and personal care aren’t exempted from this endeavor.

Here to Inspire, NOT Preach

I am not and do not aim to be zero waste. I’m also not here to preach at you from astride a white horse. My time is valuable to me, and I am willing to make certain concessions in the name of convenience to preserve some of it. I think there’s a balance to strike – plastic isn’t evil, just like chemicals aren’t evil, but we should produce and consume (let alone recycle or dispose of) far more thoughtfully (read: less) than the average person is today.

If you’re able or willing to go harder than me? That’s great! If you haven’t made changes along these lines but want to, that’s great too – and maybe I can give you some ideas to lower your beauty waste that don’t feel like such a sacrifice that you can’t achieve them. After all, goals that aren’t achievable aren’t smart.

Just because you aren’t going full-tilt doesn’t mean what you CAN do doesn’t make a difference.

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Wands for Wildlife

Wands for WildlifeA wee opossum helped by Wands for Wildlife

What happens with your mascara wands when you finish a tube?

If you’re anything like I was they usually end up in the trash. Cosmetics packaging isn’t readily recyclable due to the blend of plastics and other materials. Occasionally TerraCycle has a campaign that allows for recycling of otherwise-uncommonly recyclable cosmetics packaging; right now, they’re partnered with Garnier to offer no cost recycling for those tough-to-recycle beauty and personal care items. Pretty cool!

Recycling = Good; Reusing = Better

I now keep a bin of cleaned out packaging to send off to TerraCycle. While it’s great to recycle when you can, you’ll have a greater impact to the environment if you can reuse. After all, an item in its original form without engaging the additional resources needed to turn Item A into new Item B is more resource- and environment-friendly. For me, this means cleaning and keeping mascara wands I like to use with formulas I prefer. I’m picky, though, and a lot of them are still cast out.

For the environmentally inclined among you: What if I told you that you could save your wands and send them off to help woodland critters?!

Wands for Wildlife

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