Health and beauty retailer Watsons and beauty giant L’Oréal have teamed up for a recycling programme in Hong Kong.
The ‘Beauty for the Future’ programme will let customers recycle the cleaned containers of any beauty brand, including foundation bottles, mascara wands, skin care tubs and lipstick tubes at around 170 Watsons stores across the city.
In exchange, customers will receive rewards in the city’s largest loyalty platform, MoneyBack.
Once collected, Hong Kong circular economy player V Cycle will break down the waste, separate it by material and work with local partners to transform these into new raw materials.
The initiative is an extension of the A.S. Watson-owned store’s similar region-wide launches in Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia.
In Taiwan, Watsons worked with L’Oréal’s Maybelline brand to set up recycling bins in store, while, in Thailand, shoppers can recycle PET plastic bottles at the Garnier Refund Machine in selected stores to earn a free Pink Micellar Water from the L’Oréal-owned brand.
Watsons likewise partnered with Garnier in Indonesia to encourage plastic bottle recycling.
“Pre-loved beauty packages have their place, but that place is not in landfills,” said Eva Yu, President & Managing Director of L’Oréal Hong Kong.
“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.
“With the scaled-up recycling campaign as part of our ‘L’Oréal for the Future’ sustainability programme, we want to further inspire and influence how our consumers think and what they do about packaging wastes – not as something to toss out, but as a resource that can be recycled and used again, and sustainably, reducing the impact on our environment.
“Our partnership with Watsons and V Cycle will help make this a reality.”
“At Watsons, we believe going green is the new beautiful,” Malina Ngai, CEO of A.S. Watson (Asia and Europe) added.
“We made it our purpose to do the right things for our customers and the planet.
“Sharing a common sustainability vision with L’Oréal, we appreciate this… partnership in the region to educate customers as well as engage them in action so that together we can create a bigger impact to the planet today and tomorrow.”
