Words by Smiley Team
In a step closer to sustainability, cosmetics brand L’Oréal has announced a new bottle made from infinitely recyclable plastic. Thanks to a recycling process developed by pioneer Carbios, the plastic bottles can be broken down in an endless loop, meaning that the materials they are made from need never be discarded.
“We have been working with Carbios since 2017 to develop this first bottle made from PET derived from enzymatic recycling technology, an alternative to mechanical recycling,” said Jacques Playe, packaging and development director at L’Oréal.
He added: “We are pleased to announce today the feasibility of these bottles in a pilot phase and are delighted to be in a position to create the packaging of the future with our partners. This is a promising innovation for the years to come that demonstrates our commitment to bring to market more environmentally friendly packaging.”
L’Oréal aims to get the bottles onto shop shelves in 2025 under its brand, Biotherm, which is dedicated to sustainable and responsible cosmetics.
“Biotherm is a pioneer in eco-responsible cosmetics and has put sustainable packaging and waste reduction at the center of its strategy. We are delighted to be the first beauty brand to realize a completely recycled bottle using plastic from Carbios’ disruptive technology,” said Giulio Bergamaschi, global brand president of Biotherm.
Every minute, 20 tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean, and every week we swallow an average of five grams of this. If this continues the UN warns that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish.
The new plastic bottles are just the latest part of a project initiated by L’Oréal to tackle this problem in collaboration with Carbios. The companies created a consortium, which Nestlé Waters, PepsiCo and Suntory Beverage and Food Europe later joined.
The cosmetics giant takes this further with its sustainability initiative “L’Oréal for the Future”, which sets out sustainability commitments for 2030 with a particular focus on packaging.
The pledges include ensuring all its plastic packaging is refillable, recyclable or compostable by 2025. It then plans to produce 100 per cent of its plastic packaging from recycled or bio-sourced materials by 2030, eliminating all newly-produced plastics derived from fossil fuels.
On top of this, the company will shift to using only sustainably sourced ingredients with traceable origins by 2030.
To reach these goals, L’Oréal is collaborating with a number of specialist partners, including beauty packaging producers Albéa, recycling service provider Purecycle, and carbon recycling innovators LanzaTech and Total. Previous innovations that have emerged from this collaboration include a plastic bottle made entirely from carbon emissions.
Find more information about sustainability at L’Oréal here.
