It\u2019s never too late to switch to\u00a0sustainable choices\u00a0in any and every aspect of your life. By making mindful moves on how you consume in your day-to-day activities, you can thrive alongside nature and save the planet’s biodiversity, which is essential for its future as well as our own. When it comes to beauty, it is really up to us, the consumers, and\u00a0the brands, the makers, to start the chain of change. Looking for zero-waste and plastic-free products with safe ingredients is as essential as finding the one oil that will give you that glow. Did you know that the\u00a0sunscreen\u00a0you use to protect your skin could be harming the life in the oceans in which we swim? Or that the bottle of shampoo that has served its purpose for you will continue to remain on the earth for a long, long time after you\u2019re gone? So, what can you do to make a difference? For starters, join the blue beauty movement, which simply means tweaking your buying habits to ensure what you consume is not destroying the ocean and its ecosystem. Here\u2019s everything you need to know as a beauty consumer to make the right choice today.<\/p>\n
Plastic ingestion or entanglement kills over 1,00,000 marine animals yearly. India\u00a0generates 9.46 million tonnes of\u00a0plastic\u00a0waste\u00a0annually, of which 40 per cent remains uncollected and 43 per cent is\u00a0used\u00a0for packaging, and, \u201cout of over a billion different kinds of packaging material used in cosmetics globally, the majority continues to be unrecyclable,\u201d says Vinod Malayilethu, team lead for the Marine Conservations Programme, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) India. More than 120 billion units of beauty packaging are produced globally every year and \u201cone dump truck full of plastic waste enters our ocean every minute, which the equivalent of eight million tonnes of plastic every year, and it\u2019s having a huge impact on our sea-life,\u201d says Paula Chin, sustainable materials specialist at WWF-UK. If this continues, by 2050, a sea of fish will change into a\u00a0sea of plastics. Plastic entanglement affects the natural environment of most species on the planet. Animals get entangled in large plastic debris, leading to acute and chronic injury or death. Animals also ingest large quantities of plastic and are unable to pass it through their digestive systems, resulting in internal abrasions, digestive blockages and death,\u201d explains Varun Aggarwal, program manager for Climate & Business, WWF-India.<\/p>\n
Step one is to realise how your consumption impacts the environment and then ask yourself, \u201cDo I really need that product?\u201d If the answer is yes, these are the next steps:<\/p>\n
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Navigating a long and vast list of ingredients can be overwhelming. But while each individual ingredient may be deemed safe for use in smaller quantities, it\u2019s important to understand their cumulative impact on marine life and thus understand what\u2019s good and what\u2019s not. This guide sheds light on some critical rules to follow to pick reef-safe, eco-friendly options:<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s simple:\u00a0say no to plastic. And then, opt for products with\u00a0minimal packaging. Brands today offer reusable, refillable and compostable packaging, as well as packaging-free alternatives such as soap and shampoo bars. With a little bit of digging, you\u2019ll be exposed to a whole new world of zero-waste products that could truly change your life and the world that we live in. Chin stresses on the positive impact of choosing brands that used recycled materials: \u201cThis can reduce the overall carbon footprint by as much as 50 per cent.\u201d Aggarwal also reminds us to avoid single-use plastic or picking up products that come in tiny packaging, like shampoo sachets, which are difficult to segregate, sort and recycle.<\/p>\n
Home-grown\u00a0zero-waste brand\u00a0Bare Necessities packages all of its products in reusable glass jars, wrapped in cloth scraps from its local tailor and paper scraps from its printer. \u201cIn other words, we only use post-consumer packing materials to ship our products to our customers. We also use paper tape to pack our boxes instead of traditional plastic tape,\u201d says founder Sahar Mansoor. For Chris Birchby, the founder of cult sunscreen brand Coola, it\u2019s important to ensure his product is\u00a0reef-friendly\u00a0(as recognised by Hawaii\u2019s government) and organic. \u201cAdditionally, a large portion of our suncare collection utilises only non-nano mineral actives, zinc oxide and titanium dioxide,\u201d he says. Coola’s farm-to-face sourcing methodology focuses on organic farms that don\u2019t use pesticides, significantly reducing the impact on waterways and the oceans the products run into.<\/p>\n
Chin urges today\u2019s beauty brands to find creative ways to become more sustainable\u2014see if the product can be sold without packaging or if there\u2019s an opportunity to use reusable, refillable packaging. \u201cIf not, make sure the packaging can be easily recycled based on local requirements and contains recycled content,\u201d she says. Ultimately, it\u2019s a shared responsibility, and together we can make beauty better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s never too late to switch to\u00a0sustainable choices\u00a0in any and every aspect of your life. By making mindful moves on how you consume in your day-to-day activities, you can thrive alongside nature and save the planet’s biodiversity, which is essential for its future as well as our own. When it comes to beauty, it is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":358,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4,5,6,7],"post_folder":[],"yoast_head":"\n