Look Good and Feel Green

The other day I ran out of moisturizer. I was expecting it, so when I couldn't coax the last dollop of cream out of the bottle, I grabbed another one and went to toss the empty bottle in the recycling bin. That's when I saw the dreaded number "5" on the back, indicating that it couldn't be recycled in our curbside recycling bin, and had to be tossed in the trash instead. I don't know about you, but I hate creating garbage. And I felt bad about throwing the bottle away, because I knew that as soon as I ran out of moisturizer or any of the other plastic encased products in my bathroom cabinet, that they too would be headed for the landfill, doomed to stay there for all of eternity.

That's a little dramatic, I know. But ever since I made my New Year's Resolution to give up plastic bags, I have been hyper-aware of all the plastic that is used to hold every day items I use, especially my cosmetics. If you open our bathroom cabinet or pull back our shower curtain, you'll see all kinds of products like my moisturizer, packaged in plastic bottles or tubes that can't be recycled and have to be thrown in the trash instead.

So you can imagine my excitement when a friend introduced me to Lush Cosmetics last month. If you aren't familiar with Lush, they produce fresh, handmade cosmetics that use as little packaging as possible, and the packaging they do use can either be recycled or composted. I was so impressed by the ways Lush avoids unnecessary packaging that I immediately asked if I could interview one of their sales associates about it. To my delight, they agreed, and below is my interview with their sales associate Roseanna from their NW 23rd store. She gave me a lot of great information about the ways the company avoids packaging, as well as the company's recycling program for the packaging that is used. There is a lot of information Roseanna couldn't cover in our interview, so if you are interested in learning more about what we cover in this video, feel free to visit Lush's website and read all about their green policy. 

Enjoy!