Lush to reward shoppers with new pack recycling scheme

Lush UK and Ireland is to launch a new deposit scheme to incentivise its customers to recycle their used packaging.

The new ‘Bring It Back’ packaging returns scheme will reward customers with a 50p deposit to spend on their Lush basket, for each full-sized piece of Lush packaging returned to stores, once the lockdown restrictions are eased.

The returned packaging will then be sent to the Greenhub, Lush’s UK recycling hub, where packaging is processed and sent to its UK partners to be remoulded into new black Lush pots, or used as industry feedstock material.

The concept will build on Lush’s pre-existing fresh face mask scheme, which rewards customers who bring back five items of Lush plastic packaging with a fresh mask - resulting in more than 500,000 pot returns each year.

Lush Cosmetics Earthcare retail lead Rae Stanton-Smithson, said: “At Lush the majority of plastic packaging used is from recycled and recyclable plastic.

“However, Lush wants to take even more ownership of its plastic packaging and ensure bottles, pots and tubs are given the new life they should have.

“We are working hard to offer people the ultimate waste-free shopping experience. We continue to invent revolutionary naked products, unique packaging materials, work on reusable plastic packaging items as well as looking into refilling options for the future.

“This recycling scheme is another step on our path to leaving the world Lusher than we found it.

“By moving towards a deposit-style scheme, whereby Lush customers know that they are ‘renting’ the packaging and can simply return it when they are finished, we keep the responsibility of waste-reduction and resource recycling as a company responsibility. All we need our customers to do is simply return their empties to us – we’ll take care of the rest.”