How it works

If any of our packaging can’t be cleaned, sterilised, and reused it can be recycled instead.

We have partnered with TerraCyle to provide the Emma Lewisham Beauty Circle Recycling Programme to our New Zealand and Australian customers. For every 4 items shipped to TerraCycle through the Beauty Circle, senders receive a $15 Emma Lewisham voucher which is redeemable on our website only. We accept not only our own facial products but any brands’ facial products.

How it works – New Zealand

1. Collect a minimum of 4 empty facial skincare vessels. These can be from any skincare brand (it doesn’t have to be an Emma Lewisham product)
   
   
2. Sign up with our recycling partner Terracycle, at https://www.terracycle.com/emmalewisham-nz
   
   
3. Download and print your free shipping label from your Terracycle profile
   
   
4. Place your empty vessels in any re-useable packaging for shipping (such as an old cardboard box) and affix the shipping label. Then drop your package off to your local New Zealand Post.

For more info on how it works see here

How it works – Australia 

1. Collect a minimum of 4 empty facial skincare vessels. 3 need to be from Emma Lewisham,  one can be from any other skincare brand.
   
   
2. Visit https://return.auspost.com.au/new_zealand_post and enter your information to get your pre-paid return shipping label, which you can use to send your empty bottle back to us.
   
   You’ll need to provide an order code, which is “EBC” + a dash + 000000 + your 4 digit Emma Lewisham order number.  An example order code would look like: EBC-0000006184.
   
   Remember, you can get your Emma Lewisham 4 digit order number from your Emma Lewisham shipment confirmation email for the last order you made with us.
   
   
3. Print your pre-paid return shipping label (or go into a Post Office and they will do it for you).
   
   
4. Place your empty vessels in any re-useable packaging for shipping (such as an old cardboard box) and affix the pre-paid return shipping label.  

For more info on how it works see here

Why?

Before we started Emma Lewisham we did a lot of research in to the state of the beauty industry and the impact it is having on our planet. We learnt some horrifying statistics that showed very clearly to us that the industry needs a big shake up - and one area in particular, is the packaging used.

Despite popular belief much of the packaging used by beauty brands is not recycled. This is because of the simple economics of recycling. There are lots of costs (and GHG emissions) associated with recycling and if no one buys the recycled material it simply isn’t viable to recycle it. Read about the recycled content in our packaging here.

Globally there is good demand for recycled PET plastic (#1) - think plastic water bottle, HDPE (#2) - think shampoo bottle, and PP (#5) - think yoghurt pottle so these plastics are commonly recycled in developed countries. However, recycling rates depend a great deal on contamination rates, and packaging design.

A huge part of the recycling process is separating the different materials that have been collected, and that is a huge job! This is either done using specialised machinery (see an example of it happening in our city of Auckland here), or human labour. (Spare a thought for them every time you put something out to be recycled). 

Because of the challenge and cost involved with sorting the different materials packaging that contains multiple different materials is far less likely to be recycled (this is why our boxes are not lined with plastic as many other cosmetics brands do).

So outside of reusing refillable packaging what else can you do to help? We recommend you always wash your empty packaging before putting it out to be collected, and you check with your local collector what materials they accept. You may be causing them more hassle than you realise.