EP69. Biodegradable Beauty - a license to greenwash the beauty industry?

What happens when you rinse your shampoo down the drain? And what about those lotions you didn't use up, which you scraped into the trash? What happened to them afterwards? And what about the packaging they were sold in? Have you ever thought about the end of life of your cosmetic ingredients and their packaging? Today's episode tackles a topic that is often discussed but frequently misunderstood. We're going to talk about biodegradability and the beauty industry. It's very easy to think that all natural and naturally derived ingredients instantly break down the moment they hit the soil, but the truth is that there's a lot more involved in the breakdown of your cosmetics and they may never even touch soil at all. So settle in for a challenging podcast that might make you rethink the term biodegradability and how it relates to beauty altogether. Welcome to Green Beauty Conversations, the podcast that challenges you to think about how you buy, use, make and sell your natural beauty formulations. We tackle topics that will make you think and encourage debate about green beauty with your friends, followers or customers. I'm your host, Lorraine Dallmeier. I'm a chartered environmentalist, biologist, and the CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school, Formula Botanica. We have thousands and thousands of students in over 175 countries around the world who study with us to become organic beauty formulators and entrepreneurs. Visit our website@formulabotanica.com to try our free online formulation course. I'm joined today by my colleague Anna Green, who is Formula Botanica's Deputy Education Manager and who has long been fascinated by the environmental impacts of the beauty industry and its packaging. So today's podcast is a Formula Botanica discussion where we pick apart the term biodegradable beauty, try to put a definition to it, and explain the complexities of breaking down a cosmetic formulation and its packaging in the environment. Hi Anna. Welcome back to the podcast. How are you doing today?

I'm great, thank you Lorraine. Thank you for having me.

Oh, this is going to be a fantastic podcast. And I know both of us have agonized over this topic because it is such a complicated one, but hopefully, hopefully we've done the topic justice in breaking it down to something that people understand. No pun intended. So I guess the first question I have then is, can you tell us what biodegradable actually means?

Yes, of course. And like you say, it is a slightly more complex topic that we're tackling today, but hopefully people will gain a lot of value from it. The word biodegradable refers to a substance or an object that can be broken down by bacteria or other organisms in the environment. Biodegradability is a biological process that breaks items down into smaller and smaller pieces until they can be ideally reabsorbed into the environment, hopefully without creating pollution. Some examples of common everyday items that are biodegradable are fruit and vegetable peelings and garden waste. It is really important to understand that there are other mechanisms by which objects or substances can break down in the environment. In fact, given enough time, most things will eventually degrade, whether these use organisms as part of that process or not. However, this can take a substantial amount of time. There are all sorts of other factors that will affect how quickly something will break down, such as heat, light and wind, for example. Another common term that we hear a lot is compostable. And composting is the process of breaking items and substances down into compost. And for this to occur, you need the right environment. Whilst there are similarities between the two processes, compostable and biodegradable are not necessarily interchangeable, although sometimes they are used in this way, which can be really confusing. Composting requires a balance of materials, oxygen and a certain temperature for microorganisms to be most active. Several years ago I conducted an experiment with several pieces of packaging that were making biodegradable or compostable claims. This was inspired by a campaign that had been led by a marine charity where they looked a variety of biodegradable glitters on the market and they tested them in seawater to see if they would break down if washed into our waterways. And of course they didn't, because in this case they would require industrial composting. So I took several of these containers that made these eco friendly claims and put them on my home compost to see if they would break down and if so, how quickly would they do it. One of the containers is still visible at the bottom of my compost heap. Now, so just because something can break down in certain circumstances, it does not mean it always will, especially if the conditions required for something to biodegrade or to be composted are complex.

I love the fact that you have beauty products on your compost heap. I think that's awesome. I'd love to come and see them actually where they're poking out from the top or the bottom. But you're absolute. There's so many claims around biodegradability and I don't think anyone's actually always tested them, but that's obviously what we're going to be talking about a bit more in the podcast today.

It's absolutely fascinating, actually, and I would urge people to be curious around this topic. Definitely. So, Lorraine, now that we've talked a little bit about what biodegradable means, how does this apply to beauty? What is biodegradable beauty?

Well, that is the million dollar question. So when prepping for this podcast, I discovered that there isn't a clear definition of what biodegradable beauty actually means. So I realized that we had to come up with it ourselves. Now, that is not the first time this has happened on the podcast. We've done that with circular beauty, which you and I recorded only recently, Clean Beauty, where I didn't like the general consensus on what people defined clean beauty to be. So we redefined it. And even natural beauty, which we redefined in our very first episode here at Green Beauty Conversations, which I have to say remains our most popular episode to date. So our definition is that biodegradable beauty is about the ingredients and potentially about the packaging. But we'll come on to that. So, firstly, biodegradable beauty means that the ingredients used inside the formulation need to have the capacity to be broken down in the environment in a timely manner. And that ties in with what you were just saying. But we also need that the environment needs to be able to receive those particles once they're broken down without the ingredients causing a detrimental impact upon the environment. So the first question anyone listening to this podcast is going to ask is, how long should it take for our cosmetic ingredients to break down? Well, the good news is that there is a standard definition for a substance that is readily biodegradable. And that means that at least 60% of it is degraded within 28 days under conditions designed to resemble water treatment plants, which is where most of our cosmetics end up. In other words, the majority of your ingredients in your beauty products should have broken down within a month for them to be thought of as biodegradable. So that's ingredients. Next up, we have packaging, which is of course what most people talk about when they talk about biodegradability, and also obviously what you were showcasing with by putting your packaging on the compost heap. Now, it's important to understand that all materials will degrade over time. Although this could be hundreds of years, everything will break down eventually. And this is where the confusion really starts. Because just because something will break down in 400 years, does that make it degradable? Clearly, that's very different to 28 days, but you can see how the term can then easily be misused in marketing claims. And the next question to ask is, will cosmetic packaging degrade in the environment at all, or would it need to degrade in industrial composters, which you were just talking about as well? And if degradation has to be undertaken at an industrial level, what sort of energy input and temperatures are required now? It might be huge. So again, biodegradability might not be as simple as leaving something to be broken down. It might need to be processed for that to happen. Now, the big discussion in the beauty industry is all about bioplastics. And beauty brands have the option to use bioplastics for packaging now, which is produced from renewable biomass sources, such as sugar derivatives, including starch or cellulose. And there are some types of biodegradable plastics that might only break down to microplastics, rather than fully being broken down by microorganisms. So again, it's not clear cut there either. And furthermore, biodegradable plastics aren't necessarily solving the problem of plastics pollution. Most people don't know that, of course, and they'd happily assume that biodegradable means that the impacts of your packaging will be negligible, and then they might dispose of it differently as a result of those marketing claims. So the question then is, should biodegradability even be a commercial claim? Some companies, interestingly, in researching this podcast, I found, say no. And they don't tell their customers when they use biodegradable packaging because they think it might actually encourage littering, which I thought was a fascinating concept. So would then a refillable option perhaps be better if it can be used practically forever and we put less plastic into circulation to start with, like we recently discussed in our circular beauty podcast. So you can see where it starts to become really complex. Should we be aiming for biodegradability in our packaging? Should we be seeking to keep packaging in a loop forever? Instead, should we try to avoid packaging as much as possible, or should we be looking to combine all of those options? I don't really think there's a simple answer, and I don't think the issue is as clear cut as everyone listening might initially think.

No, I totally agree. There is a lot of factors to consider when we're talking about this topic and people want simple answers and sometimes they're not always available.

Very true. So, Anna, I know you have your finger on the pulse of what's happening in indie and green beauty. Which brands have you seen that are really thinking about biodegradability?

Unlike some of the other topics we have tackled recently on the podcast, such as circular beauty, it was much harder to find examples of brands that are truly engaging in the top topic of biodegradable beauty. And I think that is because this is one of the most complex topics that we have tackled today on the podcast. Several years ago, Unilever launched a brand called Love, Beauty and Planet, and at the time I tested several of their products, including a shower gel, and they actually added on the label what percentage of the ingredients inside were biodegradable. For example, for the shower gel it was something like 83% biodegradable, which at the time instantly raised the question for me of what would happen with the other 17% of the formula, because that part wasn't made at all clear. Garnier, another big player in the industry, do mention biodegradability of their shampoo bar ranges on their website and have added a percentage which is in this case 97%. But I couldn't find any further information for how they had made that calculation or indeed if their products could be made 100% biodegradable. The focus on the end of life of packaging is still taking the spotlight and brands are engaging much more meaningfully with this topic than they are with the biodegradability of what is inside the bottles. Several brands are using packaging which is designed to be completely biodegradable, such as green people who are using Sullipak containers for their latest balm release. These containers are a plastic alternative and they have been tested by the manufacturer under different conditions. And 70% of the container is reported to biodegrade in soil within 21 days under accelerated conditions. So this means the ideal way to dispose of the packaging is still, as we sort of discussed before, industrial composting rather than home composting. I did find other examples of brands using the term biodegradable in their marketing or their websites, but with no data to back it up at all, which for consumers is going to be incredibly confusing. And I have yet to see anyone tackle this topic really in depth and in an easy to understand way. But rather, brands are tending to scratch the surface a little bit on this one.

I completely agree. It's also what I found when I was looking into this and I hope that this podcast might be making some formulators or beauty brands out there thinking, hang on a minute, what could I do to bring biodegradability into my brand potentially?

Yeah, absolutely. So I have a question now, Lorraine, for you that has been bothering me for some time. How do we know if an ingredient is biodegradable or not?

Yes. So this one kept me awake for a while, actually prepping for this podcast. So, as we've already discussed, the term biodegradable isn't always clearly defined. I mean, even though the oecd, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, they say that a substance is readily biodegradable if 60% of it is broken down in 28 days in standard treatment conditions. As I already mentioned, that doesn't mean everyone else is using that same definition. And that was the really fascinating thing that I found when I was researching this particular topic. However, I'd say it's pretty safe to assume that any ingredient that is made of or derived from organic matter will degrade within a reasonable time frame. The only problem is that we don't know what that timeframe is, particularly when it comes to natural ingredients. So I did a lot of research for this podcast and I kept coming up blank. It was so frustrating. And, you know, I was talking to the education team here at Formula Botanica as well, and all of us were just coming up blank because there is hardly any information available on the biodegradability of ingredients typically used in natural cosmetics. So examples would include plant fats, waxes, hydrosols, essential oils. Each ingredient should come with a safety data sheet, which is a document that tells you how to handle, store, or deal with an ingredient with a chemical in an emergency. And each of these safety data sheets brilliantly contains a section on ecological information, which should include a section on persistence and degradability. So you should be able to open up your safety data sheet and navigate to the relevant section and find what you're looking for. And I thought that that would be a great place to start. But I was so disappointed by what I found. So I tried to collect as many safety data sheets as I could for three natural ingredients used in our community, quite often lavender essential oil, beeswax, and cocoa glucoside, which is a naturally derived surfactant. And I reviewed 25 safety data sheets from different suppliers around the world, and only four of them mentioned the biodegradability of those three ingredients. The rest all just said no data available or didn't even mention degradability at all, which is pretty shocking. So I guess it's reasonable to say that the data provided by many suppliers just doesn't adequately take the ecological impacts of natural chemicals into account. The other issue, which you already flagged right at the start of our chat, is that we often think of biodegradability in the same way that we think about composting. But the reality is that most personal care products will get poured down the drain. So that means they'll end up in our waterways. They won't be in our soils or on a compost heap. While a vegetable oil might break down completely in 28 days, when it's in the soil, it might take much longer in water because water and oil don't mix. So that means that the solubility of your ingredients matters, too. Now, luckily, water treatment plants have ways of separating oil and water and then treating the fats and oils in such a way that they break down. But I think it's worth remembering that it's not just about the biodegradability of your ingredients. It's also about the environment that they're discharged into. And this is why some of the bigger personal care companies are doing some work on this. I mean, you've already mentioned Unilever, l' Oreal as well. They calculate what they refer to as the critical dilution volume, the CDV for any products that get poured down the drains. So you can think of soaps, conditioners, shampoos, that sort of formulation. And these bigger companies then tend to calculate the gray water footprint for their formulations, which is the amount of fresh water required to dilute a formulation after it's been used by the customer. That is us down to a concentration. That means it doesn't have toxic effects on aquatic species. So when we're trying to figure out if an ingredient is biodegradable or not, there are a few things you can do. Firstly, go and find the safety data sheet for that ingredient. And if there is no degradability information on it, challenge your supplier. I appreciate they will not appreciate me saying this on this podcast, but I think we need to challenge them a little bit more. Secondly, remember that biodegradability also depends on solubility to a certain degree. So let's not pour fats and oils down the drain if we can avoid it. No one wants any more fatbergs in our life. And thirdly, all organic matter should break down in a manageable time frame. Although I want to make the point here that natural doesn't necessarily always mean more biodegradable, as some, certainly not all, but some synthetic ingredients can be designed to break down even faster than their natural counterparts. So again, it's just not a clear cut discussion at all.

Absolutely fascinating. Thank you for that, Lorraine. I mean, so many things to think about for brands and for consumers as well.

Yeah, well, let's talk about consumers in that case. Do you think, Anna, that consumers should be thinking about biodegradability in beauty I.

Thought about this question for a long time because I think whatever we do in the beauty industry, we should have consumers first and foremost in our minds because I realize it can be quite a confusing space to navigate. Currently, I think this topic is not talked about enough. We've already discussed the fact that we really struggle to find certain information for this podcast and it is far too consuming for consumers to truly be able to make an informed decision. There's just not enough data available. So much of the focus has been and probably will continue to be on packaging rather than the formula itself and how quickly the ingredients either biodegrade or degrade in the environment. Anyone who is concerned about making better environmental choices in terms of their beauty products, one of the key things we can all do is simply reduce our consumption. And this is something that we have discussed several different times on the podcast before and it still holds true when we're talking about biodegradability, because ultimately the less product that we're using, the less products will wash away into the environment. I think it is also worth pointing out that whether something is biodegradable or not, and I think you've sort of hinted at this before, will tell us nothing about the energy or the resources that were used to make it so. For example, I've been seeing a lot of brands creating single use sheet masks and switching from plastic lined materials to cotton. However, cotton is still an incredibly water and energy intensive material to produce and to grow, so sheet masks are always going to be quite intensive in terms of their resources. Even if the end product can biodegrade and not linger in the environment, there will still be pollution as a result of the production process, which we need to take into account. I think many of the other topics that are so prevalent in the industry have been as a result of a consumer drive, such as the focus on packaging, for example. However, with biodegradable beauty and ensuring there is no bioaccumulation from ingredients or the processes involved in creating them, that conversation will need to be led by people in the industry themselves, such as ingredient manufacturers and brands. And I would love to see more information and education available to people about these topics because at the moment I think there is simply not enough data to be able to make an informed choice.

Yeah, absolutely. The industry needs to be leading this conversation. It shouldn't necessarily have to come from consumers. I couldn't agree more with what you've just said.

So Lorraine, let's round this off. What is the future in biodegradable beauty. How are we going to move forwards?

Well, normally I really like getting my crystal ball out to answer these questions, but I really struggled with this one. It's such a tough question to answer because I'm just not seeing the beauty industry do enough on this topic at the moment. I mean, you just rightly flagged the conversation needs to be led by us as an industry, and we're not doing it really. And there's just this blanket assumption that all organic matter will break down. And I don't think the industry as a whole is paying enough attention to the way our waste systems handle personal care products. A few years ago, or quite a few years ago, I tried to dispose of two and a half kilos of out of date cosmetics. I poured them all into one big bowl. It was just this horrendous gloopy mass. And I then decided to phone all of these waste organizations to find out what I should do with it. And every single one of them gave me a different answer. Some of them said, pour it down the drain. Some of them said, put it in the bin. Some of them said, we don't know basically, and there's just not enough knowledge. So we should be asking some really hard questions about what happens to our rinse off formulations when they disappear down the drain. There is currently some discussion around chemical sunscreen agents, but there seems to be an assumption that all other ingredients are fine when they're just rinsed off into our waterways. So we should be trying to minimize what goes down the drain, but we should also be trying to minimize any residues of personal care products going to landfill. And I think ultimately then it comes down to that people should aim to use up what they've bought. Although I recognize that almost all of us are guilty of not doing that. I mean, we all have products we haven't used up. So unless we start actually talking about waste that encompasses the entire life cycle of a beauty product, not just the packaging, but also the ingredients, I think the conversation is going to remain fixated on plastics. That's not necessarily a bad thing, of course, because that conversation needs to be had. I am, however, concerned that the beauty industry will simply look to make itself more biodegradable by then churning out 120 billion units of packaging made out of bioplastics every year, which clearly isn't going to solve the industry's waste problem, which is enormous. Just because it breaks down quicker doesn't necessarily make it the right environmental option. So I think the future of biodegradable beauty is entirely intertwined with the future of circular beauty. And the beauty industry needs to take responsibility for its footprint, start keeping materials in circulation, and if those materials can break down quicker too, once they're no longer needed, then that would be a great achievement. But I think we have a long way to go before we get to that stage. So what do you think, Anna? What do you think is the future of biodegradable beauty?

I thought what you said about it being intertwined with circular beauty is absolutely right. The industry has a tendency to focus on issues as if they're separate from other issues. And the reality is we need to zoom out a little bit and see the bigger picture in terms of this issue and other issues in the industry because they are actually all interlinked. So yes, I look forward to seeing what the industry comes up with going forward and hopefully we've opened up the conversation a little bit today.

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for joining me and for tackling such a big topic with me. I think this is probably one of the most complex ones we've done on the podcast to date, but it's a very important one and as you say, I hope it kickstarts the conversation.

Thank you, Lorraine. Always a pleasure.

So I hope this podcast has got you thinking about biodegradability in beauty. What does it actually mean? Come over to our Instagram page and our clubhouse rooms to tell us what you think. Is the industry doing enough to understand the dilution potential of its rinse off formulations? Are bioplastics the answer? Should we be looking more at circular beauty rather than biodegradable beauty? The Formula Botanica team and I love hearing from you, so come and tell us your views. And please do come and leave us a comment. Thank you for joining Anna and I for this latest episode of Green Beauty Conversations. I really hope you enjoyed it. Make sure you subscribe to our podcasts on itunes or Spotify or any of your favorite podcast players and stay tuned for the next episode. Follow Formula Botanica Formula Botanica on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Clubhouse, Pinterest or LinkedIn. We are everywhere. Visit our website at formulabotanica.com and sign up for our free online formulation course today. Sam.