Skip to content

Free Ground Shipping on All US Orders. Free Clean Beauty Concierge:

Book Now
Westman Atelier
  • Shop
    • FACE
      • Vital Pressed Skincare Powder
      • Vital Skin Foundation Stick
      • Baby Cheeks Blush Stick
      • Super Loaded Tinted Highlight
      • Lit Up Highlight Stick
      • Face Trace Contour Stick
      • Beauty Butter Powder Bronzer
      • Clean Glow Trio
    • LIPS
      • Lip Suede Lip Palette
      • Squeaky Clean Lip Balm
    • EYES
      • Bonne Brow Defining Pencil
      • Eye Pods Eyeshadow
      • Eye Love You Mascara
    • BRUSHES
      • Foundation Brush
      • Spot Check Brush
      • Blender Brush
      • Baby Blender Brush
      • Powder Brush
      • Eye Shadow I Brush
      • Eye Shadow II Brush
      • Lip Brush
    • ACCESSORIES
      • Brush Cup
      • Display Tray
      • Makeup Bags
      • Hair Pin
    • WESTMAN BRIDES
    • ATELIER INSIDERS
    • Collaborations
    • E-Gift Cards
    • Gift Sets
    • SHOP ALL
    Rituals of Radiance Edit: the skin-nourishing and nutrient-rich curation of wellness essentials.
  • THE ATELIER
    • About Us
      About Us
    • Clean Beauty Concierge
      Clean Beauty Concierge
    • A CLEAN APPROACH
      A CLEAN APPROACH
    • A Sustainable Approach
      A Sustainable Approach
    • Brand Collaborations
      Brand Collaborations
    • ATELIER INSIDERS
      ATELIER INSIDERS
  • Ship to:
  • 0
SHOP
LEARN
  • FACE
    • Vital Pressed Skincare Powder
    • Vital Skin Foundation Stick
    • Baby Cheeks Blush Stick
    • Super Loaded Tinted Highlight
    • Lit Up Highlight Stick
    • Face Trace Contour Stick
    • Beauty Butter Powder Bronzer
    • Clean Glow Trio
  • LIPS
    • Lip Suede Lip Palette
    • Squeaky Clean Lip Balm
  • EYES
    • Bonne Brow Defining Pencil
    • Eye Pods Eyeshadow
    • Eye Love You Mascara
  • BRUSHES
    • Foundation Brush
    • Spot Check Brush
    • Blender Brush
    • Baby Blender Brush
    • Powder Brush
    • Eye Shadow I Brush
    • Eye Shadow II Brush
    • Lip Brush
  • ACCESSORIES
    • Brush Cup
    • Display Tray
    • Makeup Bags
    • Hair Pin
  • THE ATELIER
    • About Us
    • Clean Beauty Concierge
    • Clean Ingredients Promise
    • WESTMAN BRIDES
    • ATELIER INSIDERS
    • Collaborations
    • E-Gift Cards
    • Gift Sets
    • SHOP ALL
  • Clean Beauty Concierge
  • Foundation Shade Match
  • The Atelier
    • About Us
    • Clean Beauty Concierge
    • A Clean Approach
    • A Sustainable Approach
    • Brand Collaborations
    • Atelier Insiders
  • FAQ
  • Store Locations
Ship to:
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram
  • Tiktok
  • YouTube

© 2022 Westman Atelier

Shopping Cart

{ option }

Free

Qty

Your cart is currently empty.

Subtotal

Shipping & taxes calculated at checkout

Continue Shopping View Cart
Access Denied
IMPORTANT! If you’re a store owner, please make sure you have Customer accounts enabled in your Store Admin, as you have customer based locks set up with EasyLockdown app. Enable Customer Accounts
Love, Gucci Westman
An Easy Guide to Recycling Your Beauty Products The System

An Easy Guide to Recycling Your Beauty Products

April 19, 2022

How many times can you deep clean your bathroom or re-organize your vanity in a given month? For most of us, the number shot up exponentially in recent years, with stay-at-home projects becoming deeply cathartic acts. With all that productivity comes an underlying dilemma: What to do with those tubes and pumps now destined for your trash and recycling bins? And what even belongs in there anyway?  

“By default, the bathroom is one of the most difficult places for folks to recycle,” says Gina Herrera, who is the North American Senior Director of Brand Partnerships for TerraCycle, an organization dedicated to eliminating waste when it comes to non-recyclable, or traditionally hard to recycle items, like beauty products. And while the exact number of beauty products that end up in the trash isn't easily quantifiable, consider this: Non-recyclable packaging—120 billion units of which is produced by the global beauty industry, according to the awareness campaign for Zero Waste Week—makes up one quarter of landfill refuse. 

As for Westman Atelier's signature sticks, compacts, and mascara wands? Here's a snapshot of where we're at: We are fully committed to the health of our planet, from choosing FSC-certified sustainable birchwood handles for our brushes to researching novel plastic alternatives for future products, and working only with labs that implement innovative energy reduction and waste disposal strategies; our secondary packaging is made from Invercote, a paperboard with one of the lowest carbon footprints available. And a major initiative to convert our existing compacts and future launches to refillable packaging is currently underway. (Stay tuned for more on that later this year.) 

For now, thanks to our new partnership with Pact Collective, you can recycle your Westman Atelier empties by shipping up to ten products back to us free of charge—and we'll take care of the rest.  Or, swing by one of Credo Beauty's nine nationwide stores for complimentary drop-off recycling through the innovative non-profit organization, which is dedicated to closing the loop on the beauty industry's packaging problem.

Whatever your favorite go-tos, from the eucalyptus scented body wash that's an instant sanity check to the red lipstick that makes you feel like you, this shorthand guide makes it easy to get more of them into the recycling bin.

Start with Your City's Recycling Program

Identify the bathroom items you regularly discard—such as cotton pads or toothpaste—and find out if and how you can recycle them with your local municipality, since regulations may differ by city. Rules surrounding paper, plastics, glass and more are listed on your city’s recycling page, as well as websites such as RecycleNation, an easy-to-use recycling location database. For instance, while many local programs will accept certain cotton products along with your compost, most will reject toothpaste, along with lotion and anything that holds dangerous or corrosive chemicals, such as perfume or nail polish. 

Join a Program for Non-Curbside Recyclables

Now that you have a handle on the usual suspects, dive a little deeper. Used compacts that contain magnets or mirrors—often found in blushes, eye shadows, highlighters, bronzers—or anything with batteries that can not easily be removed is also off the table when it comes to curb-side recycling. For those and other items, Gina Herrera says, find a program like Call2Recycle, which specializes in the safe disposal of batteries, or TerraCycle, which offers a variety of free recycling programs in partnership with major cosmetic brands as well as a paid option called Zero Waste Box (buy a box, pop in any type of waste, and ship it back to TerraCycle once it's full—they'll do the work for you). The only rule that applies across the board, no matter how it’s picked up or dropped off: Clean out everything as best as possible, says Herrera. That means emptying half full conditioner bottles, squeezing leftover toothpaste from the tube, or scraping out lipstick from the bullet. If you rinse out a container, adds Herrera, "make sure it is dry.”

Zero Waste Beauty Box

Look at Numbers, Labels and Lids

Back in your bathroom, take inventory of the materials still in question. Glass and aluminum packaging for non-toxic products are often curb-side recyclable—look for a #1 or #2 recycling symbol for confirmation. Just know that all liquids, labels, and flip top lids must be removed and thrown in the trash before the empty bottle is placed in your recycling bin. Pumps and springs, on items like shampoo, and trigger headed bottle caps, too. “Materials composed of multipolymers make it more difficult for a traditional municipal recycler to get the job done,” says Herrera, who adds that mascara wands and makeup brushes are complicated for similar reasons. 

Think Big Picture When It Comes to Plastics

Plastics are even trickier—especially when it comes to personal care products, says Shilpi Chhotray, the global communications lead for Break Free From Plastic, a movement that works with nearly 1,900 organizations to fight plastic pollution. The unfortunate truth is that even when all the right steps are followed, she says, there are no guarantees. For instance, the color of the packaging matters, since the manner in which most material gets sorted is based on how a piece absorbs light (black bottles often get tossed into landfills for this reason). Size is also a big sticking point. Smaller plastic items, like lipstick tubes or liners or anything that conveniently fits in a clutch, she adds “will quite literally fall through the cracks” simply because current mass recycling technology can’t easily identify and process them along with larger items such as bottles and pans. Ultimately, only 9% of plastics actually get recycled, while the rest gets shipped to places like Southeast Asia, dumped in landfills or the ocean, or burned.

Don’t let this discourage you. Do as much as you can—every piece of counts!—and remember the best means of offsetting your total plastic output can be by looking for other ways to reduce your single plastic household waste, whether that means committing to a favorite refillable hand soap in the bathroom, or compostable coffee pods in the kitchen. 

When in Doubt, Ask Questions

When confirming the recyclability of any beauty product you own or are currently in the market for, inquire with your favorite brands. That can be as simple as asking, “what can you tell me about the end of life of this product? Where will it go?” If anything, it will encourage you to make more sustainable purchases in the future. 

Retailers can also be a resource: Mission-driven companies like the aforementioned Credo Beauty offer free recycling for anything that’s dropped off at their stores via Pact (bonus: you'll earn reward points for every full-size bottle). Eco-conscious nail salons like Ten Over Ten have been known to accept expired polishes (their program is currently on hiatus as a result of the pandemic, but keep checking back).

Remember: Do Recycle, Don’t Wish-Cycle

If you’re still unsure of where an expired beauty product belongs, throw it in the trash. Tossing something in the recycling bin with the hope that it will end up in the right place is called wish-cycling, and it’s very common. “While well intentioned,” says Herrera, “the wrong material can contaminate otherwise recyclable material, which leads to additional waste in the landfill.” The safer bet? Invest in a bathroom waste bin with a separate compartment for recyclables. It's a great reminder to tap into something as simple as an empty (and recyclable) cardboard toilet paper roll or your daily makeup removing cotton pads. 

****

To learn more about Westman Atelier's sustainability efforts, click here!  Plus, check out eco-activist Pashon Murray's guide to composting—and why a bold red lip is her everyday go-to.

Share
Copy Link Share Share on Facebook Tweet Tweet on Twitter Pin it Pin on Pinterest
More From Gucci's Guide
article.image.src.alt
The System

6 Skin Boosting Body Products to Love for Summer

From a planet-positive SPF that hydrates to a soothing PM serum, here are the top six picks from Gucci's summer routine!
Read Now
article.image.src.alt
The System

7 Stylish Picks on Gucci's Home Hit List

Gucci shares her favorite home accents to update and elevate a space. From a cozy white chair that brings the Scandi style to a luxurious gilded candle—discover her latest picks!
Read Now
article.image.src.alt
The System

8 Perfect Gifts on My Mother's Day List

"A secret weapon for luminous skin. A soft and stylish pair of shearling slippers. A summer wine selection for the ages. Here are a few foolproof gift ideas for your favorite person on the planet."
Read Now

Invalid password
Enter
Back to Top
  • Customer Care
    • care@westman-atelier.com
    • Clean Beauty Concierge
    • Refer A Friend
    • Returns
    • FAQ
  • Company
    • Store Locations
    • About Us
    • Careers
    • Recycling
    • Accessibility
Sign Up For Our Newsletter

You can withdraw your consent at any time. Contact Westman Atelier.
By clicking submit you are agreeing to our Privacy Policy.

Follow Us
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram
  • Tiktok
  • YouTube
  • ©2022 Westman Atelier
  • Terms of Use & Privacy Policy

Welcome! It looks you are shopping in United States so we have conveniently set your currency to United States Dollars.

If this is not the case you can easily change to another destination and currency below.

We use cookies to give you the best experience. By using our site you agree to our use of cookies in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Accept