Be honest, how many of us get confused about whether to toss our empty perfume bottles in the red or yellow bin once we’ve spritzed them dry?
As of today we finally have our answer - and it's neither.
Mecca stores all over NZ have just added perfume glass to their recycling program, which already saves a bunch of makeup and skincare empties from landfills.
SOURCE: Mecca NZ
Much to our surprise, it turns out a bunch of our empty beauty products - including fragrance bottles - are not accepted in curbside recycling in New Zealand.
It’s because the bottles come in all sorts of glass types, with spray pumps, metal bits, and fancy decorations that need special handling.
Now, instead of scratching your head over where to bin your empty fragrances, you can swing by any Mecca store and drop them into the TerraCycle bins.
Since starting the recycling program in Aussie in 2019 and bringing it to NZ in July 2022, Mecca says that beauty lovers across Australia and NZ have saved over a million tricky-to-recycle beauty products from going to waste.
In case you didn’t already know, Mecca recycles any brand of makeup, haircare or skincare packaging including:
- Shampoo bottles and caps
- Conditioner bottles and caps
- Hair gel tubes and caps
- Hair paste plastic jars and caps
- Lip balm tubes
- Soap dispensers and tubes
- Lotion bottles, tubes, dispensers and jars
- Shaving foam tubes (no cans)
- Lip gloss tubes
- Mascara tubes
- Eyeliner pencils and cases
- Eyeshadow tubes
- Concealer tubes and sticks
- Empty perfume/fragrance glass containers, including fragrance sample vials, travel-sized and mini-fragrance
Oh, and there’s no need to scrub those bottles squeaky clean, just make sure they're mostly empty before you pop them into the recycling bin.
That’s it, I’m off to finally get rid of those empty perfume bottles collecting dust in my bathroom... and let's be honest, I'll prob buy a new one.
