Watsons and L’Oréal HK join forces for local recycling programme

Local beauty retailer L’Oréal Hong Kong has partnered with Watsons and V Cycle, a social recycling enterprise, to launch a local recycling program for the first time.  Known as the "Beauty for the Future", the campaign was created to allow local beauty consumers to recycle their cleaned cosmetics and skincare containers of any beauty brand,  including foundation bottles, mascara wands, skincare tubs, and lipstick tubes at around 170 Watsons stores across the city in exchange for rewards in the city’s largest loyalty platform MoneyBack.

All packages collected through the campaign will be sent to V Cycle to undergo sorting, processing, and eventually restructuring for use as raw materials in the building industry to promote sustainability of resources.

According to a press statement released, after an inaugural year, L’Oréal Hong Kong saved a total of 2,815 kilograms in waste, which is equivalent to 65,148 units of empty beauty containers from ending up in landfills with a promising 86.5% recycling rate. Of the collected plastic and glass materials, close to 75% have gone on to be made into EcoBricks and have already been paved at some commercial locations in Hong Kong, according to the press release.   The first tripartite collaboration was launched for trial between April to May 2022, where L’Oréal Hong Kong and Watsons have collected over 6,300 beauty containers and successfully diverted them from landfills. Previously Watsons had experience of collaborating with V Cycle on recycling campaigns.  

The campaign goal is to collect 250,000 containers in the 12 months following its official launch in July this year, which is equivalent to the height of two Mount Everests when stacked up.

Eva Yu, president and managing director of L’Oréal Hong Kong said: “Pre-loved beauty packages have their place, but that place is not in landfills. Our goal is to meet it head on with the first cross-brand recycling programme involving 18 of our beauty brands in 2021. Today, we are thrilled to work with partners along the value chain to expand the programme and positively impact people’s lives while preserving the planet,”

Samuel Lee, managing director of Watsons said: “To show our deep commitment to building a green future, Watsons has been leading the retail market and working with different strategic partners to drive O+O (online and offline) sustainability progress under the A.S. Watson Greener Stores Global Framework, going green from product development, store design and operations, to logistics and customer engagement." 

Lee also added that the brand has achieved several milestones since its launch of recycling programmes in 2015 and they are excited to extend the recycling effort to beauty products with L’Oréal Hong Kong, to foster clean beauty and reduce waste of beauty packaging, “to Look Good, Do Good, Feel Great with our customers.” he said.

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