Solid beauty bars detour .5 million bottles from landfill

Half a million plastic bottles avoid NZ landfill thanks to solid beauty bars

Ethique is edging towards its plastic-free planet Earth vision announcing today it has eliminated half a million personal care plastic bottles from landfill.

Founded by aspiring Cantabrian scientist Brianne West in 2012, the young formulation whizz is taking on the cosmetic giants and challenging them to drop the plastic packaging.

Ms West formulated a range of solid beauty products that do not require water thus eliminating the need for a vessel.

“Rival beauty products in the shampoo and conditioner category can contain as much as 90 per cent ‘aqua’ so naturally they need a container to hold all that excessive liquid.

“As a company, our goal is to eliminate everyday household plastic bottles. If this is achieved, we will be one step closer to living plastic-free and that bit closer to reducing unnecessary waste to landfill.”

This year marks the milestone of eliminating the planet of 500,000 plastic bottles, a figure that Ms West hopes to double by the end of the year.

“Globally, around one million plastic bottles are purchased per minute yet scarily only 12 per cent of plastic is recycled around the world, leading to most of it heading to landfill, or even worse, to our oceans,” she says.

Not only does Ethique not use plastic to wrap its products, the company also uses fully compostable packaging for all its products.

“It’s one thing for consumers to make a choice about purchasing ethically and sustainably but I believe that businesses should be responsible for the entire lifecycle of their product - including the packaging.

“You can’t continue to profit off a product that has a detrimental effect on the planet or the people who make it,” says West.

Each solid bar of shampoo, conditioner or other product can save about a litre of water, as well as the plastic bottle and can last three to five times longer than the conventional product.

One solid shampoo bar quickly morphed into a range of over 30 beauty and cleaning products including solid shampoos, conditioners, cleansers, scrubs, moisturisers, serums, a self-tanning bar, pet shampoo and men’s shampoo/shaving bar.

The concentrated solid bar products can often last up to 12 months and only needs the addition of water in the shower to achieve the desired result.

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