Harrods has launched a pilot scheme to recycle beauty cosmetics products, incentivising customers to return used beauty products in order to access a range of experiences and benefits.
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GLOThe scheme will be piloted for three months from Saturday 14 January in H beauty Milton Keynes, with customers encouraged to bring used beauty, fragrance and skincare products back to the store to be recycled. In what is considered a first for the UK high street, customers will even be able to return hazardous nail polish products and fragrance bottles, usually considered ‘unrecyclable’.
MYGroup has provided recycling bins where customers can return their used cosmetic products in the store. The deposited items will then be recycled at MYGroup’s own dedicated facility in Hull. The recycling bins will be placed next to the tills and H beauty colleagues will be on hand to monitor any deposits from customers during the pilot.
The scheme will be aligned to Harrods’ MyBeauty rewards programme, with customers incentivised to recycle cosmetics items in order to access a range of experiences and benefits, both online and in-store.
MYGroup is a market leader in processing cosmetic waste and has invested in a series of advanced technological processes at its Hull facility, meaning both the packaging and inner product of the cosmetic items can be fully extracted, processed and recycled.
Consequently, H beauty customers will be able to recycle a huge range of products in store – from make-up items, such as compacts, mascara and eye shadow containers, to shampoo and skincare bottles, lotion pumps and vitamin bottles. A full list of items that can be recycled is available here.
The collected products will be either composted, re-purposed and returned to the supply chain or manufactured into MYGroup’s unique solution for ‘unrecyclable’ plastic waste: MYboard™ – a material similar in consistency to plywood, used widely for construction, joinery, shop and event fittings, as well as by the company’s ReFactory™ team to manufacture products for sale or use in community settings, such as benches and desks for schools.
The in-store recycling scheme is aligned with Harrods’ wider sustainability strategy, ‘Harrods Path to a Sustainable Future’, with the company committed to reducing waste and increasing circularity across the business.
We’re proud to be working alongside one of the iconic brands of luxury British retail to reach new customers with our ground-breaking cosmetics and plastic recycling offering. MYGroup is trusted by a growing number of high-profile, forward-thinking partners in the retail space, who see the tangible, visible difference our in-store takeback schemes can make to meeting their sustainability goals.
Steve Carrie, Director, MYGroup
The launch of the scheme marks another incredible milestone for Harrods and H beauty, showcasing our commitment to bringing a more circular and sustainable shopping experience to our customers and encouraging the H beauty community to recycle beauty packaging and products that are not able to be recycled by traditional kerbside collections.
As a leading voice in the UK beauty industry, we are committed to making beauty more circular and by partnering with MYGroup we are able to capture more materials that might otherwise have found their way into landfill and waterways. I am proud to be working with MYGroup to drive this sustainability initiative and increase recycling and circularity across the beauty industry.
Mia Collins, Head of Beauty, Harrods
About Harrods’ MyBeauty scheme during the trial (‘MyBeauty Recycle and Reward’)
During the trial, customers returning five or more eligible empty beauty products in one visit to the H beauty Milton Keynes store can select from the following rewards:
- 500 bonus Rewards points
- £5 off a purchase that day
- £10 off at Drybar (min spend £35)
- £10 off at Townhouse (min spend £35)
