If you don’t know about the Green Hub, get to know; but also, have you wondered how they do it in the US and Canada? Well, let us peel back the curtain and share some insider knowledge with a few Lush staff.

“Hi! I’m Amy Merli, Sustainability Specialist for Lush North America retail. Recycling here looks quite different from the UK. North America is far bigger, and access to recycling varies a lot from town to town. I’m based in the US, so I see those gaps up close.”

Global plastic recycling rates are low, even the regions leading on plastic recycling, including the EU, India, and China, had only reached about 12-13% by 2019, according to Our World in Data. In the US, it was just 4.5%. At Lush, if we can’t make something naked, the next aim is to make sure any product that does need packaging uses the best, most innovative minimum-impact, recycled or reused materials available.

In North America, we’ve committed to taking responsibility for our packaging. We have a closed loop system for our polypropylene packaging; pots & tubes. Due to limitations in recycling infrastructure, we know many of our customers can’t easily recycle that packaging locally, especially black PP, so we’ve decided to take that packaging back.

Taking responsibility is a lovely thing to say, but it’s also a costly commitment, so we’ve been working hard to bring those costs down. That way we can do good for the planet without breaking the bank.

A bit of history of the NA journey with the program from Gary Calicdan, our plastic buyer.

“In 2009, when we launched our pot return program in North America, our plastics recycling partner turned our black pots into plastic lumber for patios and furniture. As Lush North America started buying our pots more locally in 2015, our manufacturer in Vancouver began accepting the returned pots from retail stores.

They ground them into flakes and blended them to make new pots. With the increasing volume of returned pots, we subsequently partnered with commercial plastic recyclers in Vancouver and Toronto that convert our pots into resin form (feedstock). This same resin is now used to make our current black pots—a truly transparent, closed-loop system.

A similar closed loop program is in place in 4 out of our 5 Lush manufacturing markets. Thanks to a partnership between local plastic processors, local packaging manufacturers and the Lush factory. With all these movements, it is important that we keep things as efficient as possible.”

Craig, who works on the processing side of the Bring it Back program, explains why this work matters to him.

“I have a great deal of respect for a company that goes the extra mile to keep plastic packaging out of landfill and incineration, even when it comes at a cost to the business. For that reason, I find it incredibly rewarding to find new ways to optimize our processes and logistics to further reduce our environmental impact while also lowering costs.

By making the program more efficient and sustainable, we can ensure its long-term success. We’re fortunate to have found and work alongside like-minded organizations that share our commitment to sustainability and are willing to collaborate with us to give these materials a second life”.

- Craig Stephens, Sustainability Specialist, Lush North America Manufacturing

Many hands make this program work, from retail and support teams alike. But it won’t happen without our customers, which is why we wanted to create a film that shows the process behind the scenes.

We partnered with an animation studio in Bristol, UK, to bring it to life. The magic happens in places cameras can’t always reach, so our creative team toured the processing facilities to understand how to show it through animation.

Animation by Yatta Studio in Bristol, UK, in collaboration with Mexican illustrator Caro Martínez.

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