EP226. Recycle ready: why this misleading claim makes me see red

I was today years old when I first heard the term recycle ready in relation to cosmetic plastic packaging. So what does recycle ready mean? I hear you ask. Well, hold onto your hat because this one really surprised and shocked me. The term recycle ready refers to cosmetic packaging, I assume typically plastic that is designed to be recycled when infrastructure is in place in the future. So just to be completely clear, recycle ready packaging is designed to be compatible with future recycling systems. So while the current infrastructure might not be fully equipped to handle certain materials, this packaging is prepared for when these facilities are available. I feel like I should leave a long pregnant pause now for a minute as we all just digest what that means. Because that means that some brands, presumably including beauty brands too, are basically saying, hey, we designed this packaging. You know what, it can't be recycled right now. But one day, one day, you know, when the governments of this world finally build sufficient infrastructure to handle our insatiable, out of control consumerist lifestyles that generate hundreds of millions of tons of plastic waste in our environment every year that's killing ecosystems and species on earth. Hopefully someone will go fish our packaging out of the oceans and recycle it. So yeah, let's call it recycle ready. As you can tell, I am horrified. So let's have a rant. Hi, it's Lorraine Dallmayr, chartered environmentalist, biologist and CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school Formula Botanica. I host the Green Beauty Conversations podcast and these are my green beauty opinions in which I challenge the beauty industry's terrible track record on sustainability and share my thoughts on how we make the beauty sector a better and more sustainable place. If you want to be the first to hear all of my latest episodes, make sure you subscribe to this podcast. So I've got to ask this question. Who in their right mind thought of the term recycle ready? Who honestly thought that was a good idea? Can I please see a show of hands? Because honestly, I would love to meet the person who thought that that marketing term had legs and who still manages to look themselves in the mirror each day and feel okay about them. Because this is greenwashing on a whole new level. Saying something is recycle ready for a future facility is like me selling a miracle face cream that promises eternal youth, but only works if you live on a different planet. Or it's like a beauty brand. Climate neutral ready. But only when we develop sufficient carbon capture technologies that actually ensure that their carbon intensive processes are kept in check. It is really hard to know where to go with this one. And you know what, I'm sure there are some well meaning intentions behind some of it, because some of the packaging claiming to be recycled ready is made of so called mono material, which means it's composed of a single material instead of multiple components, which is what you typically see in cosmetic packaging. So this mono material then makes it easier to be recycled when the infrastructure finally appears in the future. And ultimately some people are trying to future proof the beauty industry and its packaging so that when infrastructure finally catches up, recycling might be able to help. But right here, right now, wherever you're listening to this podcast in the world, we are clearly not recycle ready. That's a fact. According to the UN Development Program, scientists estimate that only around 9% of all the plastic waste generated globally is recycled. Most of our plastic waste, that's an incredible 79% ends up in landfills or in nature. So it really doesn't matter if your packaging has been designed for a mythical future recycling facility or not, because in the meantime, it's going to end up in a landfall or it's going to end up floating around in the great ocean garbage patches around our planet. You know what? If all of that wasn't enough, what I'm about to tell you might infuriate you even more, honestly. So one article I read interviewed a packaging company who said that the recycleready movement's origins could be credited to drum roll indie brands who raised awareness of wasteful practices within the industry. That's a direct quote from the article. Now, how is that for an accolade to give to the indie movement? How proud we can all be this term recycle ready, it's bad, it's misleading. It shifts responsibility away from the packaging manufacturers to a future recycling facility that doesn't even exist yet. And the term is unrealistic because waste processing facilities aren't going to hold on to your so called recycle ready packaging until the point that they are ready. They're going to send it to landfill right now. They're going to ship it somewhere else in the world to be dealt with. They're going to burn it. Or if we're lucky, they might try and recycle it. But I think we know that is not the likeliest option. So the companies using this term recycle ready, they need to stop. They need to take some ownership for their environmental impact. We cannot keep churning out unit after unit of packaging in the desperate hope that one day government policy and recycling infrastructure will be sufficient now. Perhaps we could hold onto our packaging and hope for improvement if we didn't all consume so much stuff and if the plastic wasn't piling up around us worldwide. The fact is, we do not have the luxury of time to hope for a future recycling facility that will miraculously solve all of our problems around the world. Our problems need to be solved right now, and they're not going to be solved by recycle ready packaging. At this point in time. I think we all know that those problems are going to be solved by us reusing our packaging or avoiding it altogether, and by creating a truly circular economy where materials never become waste and where nature is regenerated. So my challenge to you for this week is to reject any brand you see using the term recycle ready. And you know what. In fact, go one step further, please, and come and join me on my soapbox. And let's call out the rubbish greenwashing statements everywhere we see them in the beauty industry and beyond. Thank you for listening to my green beauty opinions. Remember to visit the Formula botanica website@formulabotanica.com to try our free online formula course. And if you haven't subscribed yet to the Green Beauty Conversations podcast, please make sure you do so now in your favorite podcast app. Leave me a five star review if you enjoy the conversations. I host and I'll be back soon with my next episode.