Beauty sector scores low on sustainability in CleanHub report

The global beauty industry’s poor performance on the eco front is being highlighted by a new report from plastic pollution prevention specialist CleanHub.

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It’s based on estimates and its own analysis of industry data and claims that 120 billion pieces of single-use beauty-related packages are used each year With 95% thrown away rather than recycled. 

Further, of over 7,000 beauty products, it claims only 13% are free from microplastics in its ‘Environmental Impact of the Beauty Industry’ report.

On top of that, it says just 14% of plastic beauty waste is sent to recycling and only 9% gets recycled. 

Meanwhile, beauty also contributes to deforestation with 70% of industry-produced products containing palm oil and around 10.4 million tons of water used annually in production processes.

The report also highlighted the high level of emissions for which the industry accounts and also continuing ethical issues with many factory workers continuing “to work in bad conditions, showing that beauty brands need to support them, and farmers, more”.

The report comes at a time when CleanHub claims 63% of surveyed beauty consumers saying that ‘clean beauty’ is important to their purchasing, and with almost half also saying they’d pay more for sustainable products.
 
But it does say that “luckily, it’s not all doom and gloom. A lot of cosmetic brands are starting to reconsider their environmental impact”.

Nikki Stones, Vice-President of Marketing at CleanHub, said:  “Wasteful packaging from beauty products — much of which is single-use, non-recyclable, and ultimately ends up in landfills or the ocean — is one of the biggest issues in the industry.

With consumers increasingly viewing clean beauty as a must-have when purchasing products, it’s never been a more pressing time for the beauty industry to make its practices more sustainable.”