EP20: Zeroing in on Zero Waste in Green Beauty

Hello and welcome to the Formula Botanica Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you want to find out a little bit more about our award winning natural and organic skin care and hair care courses, then head over to formulabotanica.com and try out our free sample class. In this episode, Lorraine and I debate zero waste, its principles and its applications and current trends in the beauty industry at the moment. I hope you enjoy it. Hello and welcome, Lorraine.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be back on the podcast.

Well, you haven't been here for a while, so we thought it was high time that we record another podcast together. And as mentioned in the introduction to this episode, we're talking about zero waste and its relationship to the beauty industry at the moment. So obviously, as probably a lot of our community know, this is a word, zero waste, that is being bandied about at the moment. You see it in lots of different articles, lots of different companies are using it, bloggers influence, it's floating around all the time. And so we were interested in looking at what the definition of zero waste is and what it really means. And we were having a look on the Zero Waste International alliance website at how they define zero waste at the moment. And what they have said is zero waste is a goal that is ethical, economical, efficient and visionary to guide people in changing their lifestyles and practices, to emulate sustainable natural cycles where all discarded materials are designed to become resources for others to use. Zero waste means designing and managing products and processes to systematically avoid and eliminate the volume and toxicity of waste and materials, conserve and recover all resources and not to burn or bury them. Implementing zero waste will eliminate all discharges to land, water or air that are a threat to planetary, human, animal or plant health. So if you want to check that out, head over to the Zero Waste International alliance website and they have a lot more information on their website. We found this was an interesting working definition as there doesn't seem to be a specific one around at the moment.

No, there doesn't. It's really interesting to hear what they've put out there. And I think probably most people who are interested in green beauty, listening to this, are now probably wondering, how on earth can we achieve this?

Yeah, I mean, what they've said specifically is it's a goal. And really I think what that statement says is that you can work at setting your own goals of how you might achieve what you think you can possibly achieve with your business or in your life and whatever. I mean, zero waste in the beauty and especially in the green beauty industry. Is something that's a hot topic right now. You, Lorraine, have already written an article about it for the Huffington Post. There's a link to that in the show Notes for this episode. We chatted about it as one of our trends in our In Cosmetics trends episode where we saw that they were at their the Mintol trends table. They had refillable makeup palettes and things that you could, you know, you'd buy the lipstick once and then you could get it refilled. And first of all, we were discussing in the run up to this podcast about definitions. First of all, what does it actually mean? And secondly, what is happening in the green beauty industry at the moment with zero waste? And we wanted to first of all, talk a little bit more about this. And obviously Lorraine was saying that there are some purist definitions about what it is. And also there's a large, large focus on packaging and just people looking at packaging at the moment as the one and all solution to waste issues. But we were talking about it more from a cradle to drave kind of process, looking at it from beginning to end. So I thought, Lorraine, you could chat a little bit more about what we mean by that.

Yes, I think that's something that we absolutely have to look at in the beauty industry because it is very easy to think this is just about the packaging. I've bought a lotion, I've bought a balm, here's my plastic jar. Now how do I dispose of it? But when you're making beauty products, the waste processes associated with those beauty products, they go all the way back to the beginning, which is also what I wrote about for the Huffington Post last year. What was interesting was when I was doing some research on that article when I wrote it back in September last year. So a year ago, there was hardly anything out there about zero waste beauty. But now when you search for it, I mean, I'm literally flooded with hits in Google. So it's really heartening to see that people are talking about this now and that it's become something that people are aware of. So what I talked about last year in this article I wrote, and I know that we'll move on from that in this podcast as well, is to look really straight at the beginning. You know, you're making a beauty product, you've got your ingredients coming in. Well, how are they harvested? How are they produced? How are they synthesized? There is waste associated with production of cosmetic ingredients. And basically the challenge of zero waste beauty starts right at the beginning. And you as a formulator, if you Run your own beauty brand. You need to understand how these ingredients are manufactured, how they're harvested, how they're stored, how they're shipped. You need to know the provenance of your ingredients. Now, arguably any good beauty brand should know this anyway, because your customers will be coming to you and asking you questions anyway about where you're sourcing your ingredients. But you should also understand your supply chain and really understand what's happening with that supply chain. And that involves really putting your detective hat on, maybe even going to visit some of your suppliers and really getting to grips with what's happening. Because if you found, for instance, that you're buying oils from a certain part of the world and they're being produced in a really unsustainable way, and there's a lot of waste associated with it. And for instance, waste oils being discharged into local rivers, for instance, that is obviously not in keeping with your principles of zero waste beauty and could also really harm your reputation if that sort of information ever came out. So you have to start at the beginning. You can't just look at the packaging itself. Then you also have to look at how your customer uses your products. So I'm certainly guilty of this. You know, I have a whole bathroom full of products that are half used or even unused. Obviously, I get sent a lot more beauty products than most people, maybe people think I really need. Basically, you know, I end up with so much waste. And I wrote a blog about this quite a few years ago on a different website about my challenge and disposing of two and a half kilos of unused cosmetics. And I poured them all into one bowl and it looked just disgusting. You know, I was finding old sunscreens, old lotions, old balms, butters, everything. And you have to consider what your customer is actually doing with their products because those are being disposed of as well. And a lot of countries don't have the disposal mechanism set up in order to deal with your waste lotions when they've gone off, for instance. I mean, I've just moved house, for instance. I have a whole box of nail polishes. I don't know what to do with them. I need to go and visit the local waste disposal facilities and say, basically, what do I do with my nail polishes? And they may not know either. So, yeah, just try and minimize the amount of product you're also putting out there into the world. And then the final thing is, besides packaging obviously, is think about manufacturing. You know, if you're running a manufacturing business or if you're outsourcing the manufacturing of your formulations, then your lab, your factory is also producing waste in the form of, you know, water, solid waste that goes to landfill potentially, or recycled waste, air waste, pollution. So there's all sorts of things that you have to consider that go beyond just packaging. And I think that's really what we wanted to focus on today in the podcast.

Yes, it is. I think at the moment the word zero waste, people are thinking about it in kind of a limited way. So it's like, yeah, as long as I'm using something where there's no packaging at all, or I can completely recycle the packaging, then, you know, I'm all good with that. But we had a discussion in our Facebook group about you can recycle something, but then you have to consider, is it actually recycled then? And someone gave us a good example about glass, Lorraine, didn't they?

Yeah, they did. A lot of our community members want to use glass because obviously they view glass as a more sustainable material, packaging material, it's obviously heavier to ship, which brings with it its own challenges. But on the other hand, it can be great if it can be recycled. But obviously when you're making formulations, you want to make sure that the light can't get at them too much because they can oxidize quicker, they can spoil quicker. So a lot of brands use different colored glasses and whilst they can be recycled, it doesn't mean that they are always recycled. So you might find that your local recycling facilities can only deal with certain colours of glass. Like for instance, they might get a lot of different coloured green glasses, particularly from the wine industry, and they'll have those in quite a big volume, which makes it recyclable. But if they're only getting a few kilos of black, purple glass, blue glasses, those may not end up actually being recycled, they may be shipped somewhere, they may actually end up going to landfill. So it really depends on the facilities, the waste disposal and recycling facilities, where you live and how advanced the country you're in is in terms of its waste facilities. We were just talking about the uk. I grew up in the Netherlands and they have a very advanced waste disposal facility. We even did a blog post recently where our tutor Priscilla interviewed a lady in Amsterdam on bio based packaging who was just saying, look, in the Netherlands we don't really send waste to landfill that much anymore. We can't say the same here in the uk, you know, it's far less advanced. So you have to really find out where your customers are based, what the waste Disposal facilities and recycling facilities are where they live and where your products are used. And then figure out whether your packaging will actually be recycled, because this is a big consideration.

I think obviously people listening to this might think, wow, this is a massive undertaking. If I want to really reduce my waste or I want to have packaging that is actually recyclable or, you know, et cetera, et cetera, there's all these different things that I'm going to have to do. And Lorraine and I were talking a little bit before this podcast that this can obviously seem overwhelming and you're not going to be able to do all of it at once. I mean, you know, it's just not possible to address every single issue all in one go. And we mentioned in one of our previous podcasts about natural products, about it's useful to have your own definition of natural and set your own goals and kind of ambitions in those areas. And it could be advice. Well, we were thinking it could be a good thing to have a similar thing for your waist kind of ambitions and goals. So obviously, you know, zero waste means different things to different people. If you go on zero waste blogs and you look at the most popular ones, they tend to have a definition of what they consider to be zero waste. So they, you know, they sometimes, like people will say, oh, 75%, I aim to achieve out of my total waste, 75% will be no waste at all and only 25% will be some waste or recyclable, etc. Etc. So it might be useful to set yourself some visible goals, so goals for yourself as well as that your customers and community can see and say, this is what we are trying to do. So we know we need to have a look at how our ingredients are harvested, etc. Etc. This is what we're trying to do. And by, you know, 2025, we aim to have this done and try and approach it methodically and step by step. And I think that we could, by implementing something like that, and if lots of people decided to do that, we could make a real headway into trying to dealing with, to deal with some of the waste issues we have in the beauty industry and the environmental damage that the beauty industry does contribute to. So I would highly suggest having some sort of goals or some sort of visible goals about what you might be doing to tackle some of these issues.

Sorry to interrupt, Gemma. I think that most brands should have a waste management plan. Most businesses should have a waste management plan. And if you're running manufacturing facilities in particular, it's Good to go for a standard like ISO 14001, where you get actual environmental management systems implemented in your business. Now, when you're manufacturing, when you're formulating, when you're developing, you have to have a good manufacturing practice plan in place anyway. And the standards set by ISO on good manufacturing for cosmetics even define. Waste is a core area that you have to cover. So you have to make sure that you basically have you dispose of waste in a responsible manner. You follow the advice for each of your ingredients provided in its safety data sheet. You have appropriate measures in place regarding collection, transportation, storage, disposal of waste, labels, everything. So basically what your opportunity here is to say, I have to do this anyway because it's part of my good manufacturing practice. How can I take this one step further and turn it into a goal, a sustainability goal for me, my brand and my customers to make sure that I'm sending less waste to landfill, I'm recycling more, I'm basically leading to less waste being produced overall. And I think it could only benefit you as a brand owner and your customers.

Indeed, I completely agree. And we also, before this podcast, were chatting a little bit about zero waste opportunities within the beauty industry from the customer perspective. So embracing zero waste beauty, I think, was what you said you wanted to call your article, that you wanted to write about this and, and you had some sort of basic guidelines that people might want to take on board from a consumer perspective. So I was wondering if you could share a few of those with us.

Yeah, absolutely. So really and truly, you should run through the waste hierarchy. I don't know if you've ever heard of this, but it's basically a hierarchy that sets out how you should be treating waste. And the top of the waste hierarchy always comes down to prevention and minimizing your use. And the same goes with your beauty products. I think, although this is sort of counterintuitive, coming from a school that teaches people how to formulate, ultimately it is a good idea for people to use fewer beauty products. And it's very easy to fall into this trap of these beauty regimes that say there are 10 steps you must follow every night where you cleanse, exfoliate, tone, treat, mask, moisturize, protect. But realistically, we advocate going simple. We say simplicity is better not only in the products you make, but also in the products you use and how you use them on your skin. Because realistically, your, your skin doesn't need these dozens of potions and lotions applied to it on a daily basis, so you can still achieve good results with fewer broad beauty products and by using less beauty products as well. So this is where as a brand you can provide smaller amounts, smaller doses, but as a consumer, you can also buy smaller packaging so that you basically say, this is all I'm going to use, which means I'm not going to have to pour it down the drain when I'm doing finished, which means I'm not going to be end up with half a liter of oil. As I said, we just moved house. I mean, we had to make multiple trips to the dump with just all these oils that had gone off because I get sent so many and I felt really wasteful putting them all out there. But my skin just isn't. I just don't have enough of it to apply all this stuff to it. And I'm sure this probably goes for a lot of people. And I challenge everyone listening to this podcast to go into their bathroom, open up the cupboards and have a good hard look at it and say, what's out of date? What do I need to dispose of? How am I going to get rid of it?

I think it might be useful to chat a little bit more about oils, seeing as we're on the topic of oils.

Yeah.

We had another interesting discussion in one of our Facebook groups about the use of oils in the green and natural beauty industry. And you know, there's been a lot of zero waste products that have been focused on just using oils, like making, I don't know, like a shampoo bar or solid bar, mainly based on oils. And someone mentioned that that's all well and good because obviously often you can trace where they come from. And there's a lot more ethical practices in terms of the farming and harvesting of certain oils, like shea butter, for instance, cocoa butter. But what happens when those are actually then applied to your skin and say, washed off? And the person said that often what happens is you might make a coffee scrub with, I don't know, coconut oil or something, and all of it gets washed down the drain and clogged everything up. Yes. Which causes another set of issues. And this is why I think the topic of zero waste is so complicated, because you're going to have to probably compromise somewhere. Yeah. And maybe not achieve something that's absolutely perfect because so many people will say, yeah, but oils, I mean, come on, you're. You're supporting often farmers in third world countries. You can obviously often have a really short supply chain with some oils. You can get really good evidence that they are ethically harvested. You can work with partnership organizations, you get these amazing oils, I mean, and butters and things. And now you're saying don't use them because they clog up the drains.

It's so true. And this is the problem. Well, it's not really a problem because as a formulator, you have to think about how your customers are using your products. I mean, if you're making a 50 mil facial serum and you know that people are going to just apply a few drops every night and just gently massage it into their, their facial skin, fine. But if you're making a shampoo oil or a cleansing oil or something that, you know, people will apply in large amounts, then you really have to think about how it's going to actually be washed down the drains. And this is why, of course, most shampoos consist of, you know, anywhere up to 90% water because ultimately they will just flow straight down the drains. And it's very tempting to say my conditioner is really heavily nourishing and moisturizing on the hair, but if 50% of it consists of oils and butters, that could wreak havoc in the waste disposal facilities that you're using. And it's very easy for some of these facilities to get blocked up. So again, it depends on where you're based, how you live. I mean, in our new house, we have a septic tank, for instance. We could completely destroy it if we started to pour oils and butters down it. Where my parents used to live, they had this big bio disc, it was called. And now all their neighbors were flushing all sorts of horrible things down the drains into this thing. And it was continuously blocking up until, you know, they almost had the risk of raw effluent sort of running down the streets. You don't want this to happen to you. Furthermore, it can have absolutely disastrous effects on the waterways, on soil pollution, etc. So you really do have to think about how your customers are using your products, which is why clever design comes into it.

Yeah. And obviously one of the most interesting case studies of that that's been in the press recently is the microbeads issue. Obviously there was a, you know, huge issue when environmental groups and agencies raised the fact that, hey, hang on, all of these beads are polluting the oceans and waterways and everything. So you know, how cosmetic products are flushed down the drain is a big thing. Yeah.

And of course, you live in London, in Denmark, where you're surrounded by these fatbergs that sort of.

Yes.

Blocking up the sewers, aren't they?

You know, I think there's been Numerous Facebook posts and photos and stuff of these people holding up these massive chunks of fat where it's all kind of coagulated. And, you know, in the uk, our sewerage systems, they're not robust, I feel. And it is. Yeah. I mean, it's something that happens here quite a lot. And certainly in London, you know, we ourselves, in my house, have experienced drain blockages and things. And, you know, obviously baby wipes are a big thing. That's another thing that people talk about all the time, you know, microbeads. And recently as well in the press has been about fibers from our clothes, how they get washed and then flush into the waste system and pollute the oceans as well. So this whole topic is something I don't think that's going to go away and there's no easy solution, but it's just to get these things on your radar and get you thinking about, you know, how you could possibly limit some of the damage anyway or, you know, contribute to the. Some sort of lessening of the environmental. Environmental pollution.

Yep. And I think one of the other main ways that consumers can really get into this is by also learning how to make some of their own skincare products. And you were saying earlier that a lot of zero waste beauty bloggers are very much about the diy. And, you know, DIY is great fun and can be very empowering and liberating because once you have those skills to whip up your own batch of mask or cleanser whenever you need it, you can get really creative and you can just say, right, you know, otherwise this fruit and veg I have lying around could have gone straight in the bin. But actually I'm going to use it on my face. I'm going to use the body scrub today. So there is something great fun about that. But just to caution you, if you do ever feel like going down the DIY route, you obviously have to follow the rules of safe DIY beauty and understand, you know, that things have to be preserved properly, that if you're using fresh produce, you have to make sure it can't damage the skin, etc. So there are ups and downs with that. And again, that's where sometimes you still will want to go and buy from a reputable brand that actually knows how to make their own formulations. Unless, of course, you want to, you know, turn your newfound skills into a trend and come and study with Formula Botanica.

Yeah. And then I think we were talking about, finally, we're talking about trying to. To use less packaging.

Yes, absolutely. And packaging does play a huge role in the. The sustainability of the beauty industry. Now, luckily, there are a lot of people going down the zero packaging route now. So we're seeing a lot of solid lotion bars, scrub bars, shampoo bars, conditioner bars. They're great fun and they can be extremely helpful when you're traveling. They can be great for, you know, just using around the house without needing all these plastic bottles because let's be fair, you will always use a plastic shampoo bottle in the shower rather than a glass shampoo bottle because what happens if you drop it could be disastrous. Right. It's fantastic to see this trend towards zero waste beauty product or no packaging beauty products. But at the end of the day, people are still going to want their high performance serums, their lotions, their shampoos, etc. That aren't necessarily in solid form. So the beauty industry will still always be providing these other products. And that's where we have to have a dose of reality because we're not just going to phase out everything in the beauty industry with only solid products, however fantastic that might be from an environmental and sustainability perspective. So that's where obviously all these other components come in. Which ties back to what you were saying right at the beginning of the podcast, Gemma, which is that a brand should have its own goals. You know, if you want to say I'm not going to send any waste to landfill this year, or 100% of my packaging has come from recycled sources and is recyclable, or my manufacturing processes use 100% renewable energy, then that is a great way of taking one step closer to being zero waste. And I think that's what every brand should be looking at.

And interestingly, at a cosmetic executive woman event a couple of months ago, I was speaking to a packaging provider and they said that the packaging industry, it's a tricky time for them because they often want to provide solutions and they're looking at different innovations in packaging, you know, in terms of biodegradable packaging, etc. Etc. But they, they were saying that the challenging for them is that certain products won't work or are not safe in certain types of packaging. For some products, they do not have alternatives available at the moment. And it's not to say that they won't have, it's just they're continually sh. Trying to develop things. And she was saying that they have to tread this fine line between safety and cutting down on waste. So they're kind of treading this line at the moment where they're trying to figure Stuff out. They're not quite there yet. They are continuously working at different solutions and looking at different materials. And so, yes, it's a tricky area.

Yeah. I was talking to one of our students last week who's got this amazing packaging that's come from sort of wood chip fiber resources, these wonderful jars, these finish companies she's working with. And so she's very specifically said, I'm not going to have an outer carton around my jar. It's amazing, it's sustainable and I don't want to contribute to more waste. But you just know that from a branding perspective, most retailers and most high end retailers and outlets will want brands that really sort of jump off the shelves in terms of packaging. So that's a big challenge for brands as well because they have to change mindsets amongst consumers who then have to change mindsets amongst retailers so that people actually don't want all this superfluous extra packaging as well, because it becomes part of the ritual, doesn't it? You go into a shop, you buy this beautiful lotion, it comes in this beautiful carton and box and wrapping and you feel like you've really treated yourself, but at the end of the day you don't do anything with it. And that's where we have to change our mindset as well.

I think packaging will be one of the biggest mindset changes for the beauty community as a whole. And it's going to be interesting to see what happens over the next five years with that. As consumers are pushing for more and more brands to, you know, take ownership of waste issues and to be transparent about what they're doing with packaging, with sourcing ingredients, you know, consumers are demanding more and more information and obviously if there is a drive amongst consumers for sustainable packaging, then retailers at some point are going to have to, you know, and people who work in the branding industry are going to have to kind of figure out how they can work that into their, you know, larger agendas, into their kind of marketing and retail plans and everything. So it's going to be interesting because, I mean, if you go into like a large retailer now, I mean that most of the brands have outer packaging.

Yeah, it's so true. Yeah. At the end of the day, we only have one planet, right? We can't fill it up with beauty and cosmetic packaging. So I think as a community, as an industry, we have a big role to play in that and I'm heartened to see all these indie brands talking about it, all these beauty bloggers talking about it. I now want to see the big brands starting to embrace this a bit more as well. So hopefully the grassroots, you know, the Formula Botanica community and everyone around us can start to change hearts and minds. Hopefully it will filter up the food chain to the big guys at the top.

Yeah, hopefully. Well, I think that's about all we have time for today, Lorraine. Yeah, thank you so much for coming on and joining me and for another interesting debate.

Thank you very much for having me. I love all of our podcasts and I hope you guys do too.

Bye. Thanks so much for joining Lorraine and I on the Zero Waste podcast. I hope you found it helpful and informative and that you enjoyed the content. If you want to find out a little bit more about Formula Botanica and join in on the great Zero Waste debate, then head over to our Facebook page group, Skincare Entrepreneur Mastermind, and check out the green beauty community that we've built there that discuss these sorts of issues all the time. You can also connect with us via Instagram, Twitter and Facebook Formula Botanica or head over to formulabotanica.com and check out our free sample class. Once again, thank you so much for listening.

Sam.