Leading-edge, disruptive waste management and recycling business MYGroup has
partnered with luxury retailer Harrods on a trial scheme to recycle used cosmetics
products in one of the brand’s regional ‘H beauty’ stores.
The scheme will pilot for three months from Saturday 14 January in H beauty Milton Keynes,
with customers encouraged to bring used beauty, fragrance and skincare products back to
the store to be recycled. This will include hazardous nail polish products and fragrance
bottles, usually considered ‘unrecyclable’, in what is considered a first for the UK high street.
Yorkshire-based MYGroup has provided recycling bins where customers can return their
used cosmetic products in the store. The deposited items will then be recycled at MYGroup’s
own dedicated facility in Hull. The recycling bins will be placed next to the tills and H beauty
colleagues will be on hand to monitor any deposits from customers during the pilot.
MYGroup is a market leader in processing cosmetic waste,
and has invested in a series of advanced technological processes at its Hull facility, meaning both the packaging and inner product of the cosmetic items can be fully extracted, processed and recycled.
The company already works with Boots and the Body Shop on similar in-store recycling
schemes and is trusted by other large brands and organisations across the UK to process
over 800,000 tons of waste a year, fully in-house and through transparent procedures across
four state-of-the-art facilities in Yorkshire.
Harrods’ H beauty customers will be able to recycle a huge range of products in store
From make-up items, such as compacts, mascara and eye shadow containers, to shampoo and
skincare bottles, lotion pumps and vitamin bottles. A full list of items that can be recycled
is available here.
The collected products will be either composted, re-purposed and returned to the supply
chain or manufactured into MYGroup’s unique solution for ‘unrecyclable’ plastic waste:
MYboard™ – a material similar in consistency to plywood, used widely for construction,
joinery, shop and event fittings, as well as by the company’s ReFactory™ team to
manufacture products for sale or use in community settings, such as benches and desks for
schools.
Steve Carrie, Director, MYGroup, said: ‘We’re proud to be working alongside one of the
iconic, luxury brands of British retail to reach new customers with our ground-breaking
cosmetics and plastic recycling offering. MYGroup is trusted by a growing number of high-
profile, forward-thinking partners in the retail space, who see the tangible, visible difference
our in-store takeback schemes can make to meeting their sustainability goals.’
The in-store scheme will be aligned to Harrods’ MyBeauty rewards programme, with
customers incentivised to recycle cosmetics items in order to access a range of experiences
and benefits, both online and in-store. The scheme is also allied to Harrods’ wider sustainability strategy, ‘Harrods Path to a Sustainable Future’, with the company committed to reducing waste and increasing circularity across the business.
In recent years Harrods has significantly invested in expanding its beauty offering, first
through the Beauty Masterplan, an investment project that saw the opening of a new 90,000
sq ft Beauty Hall in the Knightsbridge store in 2019, and more recently through the launch of
H beauty, a brand innovation that brings the Harrods beauty experience to new communities
outside London.
Mia Collins, Head of Beauty at Harrods, commented: ‘The launch of the scheme marks
another incredible milestone for Harrods and H beauty, showcasing our commitment to
bringing a more circular and sustainable shopping experience to our customers and
encouraging the H beauty community to recycle beauty packaging and products that are not
able to be recycled by traditional kerbside collections. ‘
‘As a leading voice in the UK beauty industry, we are committed to making beauty more
circular, and by partnering with MYGroup we are able to capture more materials that might
otherwise have found their way into landfill and waterways. I am proud to be working with
MYGroup to drive this sustainability initiative and increase recycling and circularity across
the beauty industry.’
