A World of Waste

A world of waste.

After hoarding packaging from beauty, cosmetics, and skincare products for the last few years, I have decided to do this one last project with the packaging and then recycle what I can and throw out the rest. Three garbage bags full of waste is too much to carry around forever.

I couldn't believe how many packages I ended up with after just a few years.

When I think of all of the packaging that comes with beauty, cosmetics, and skincare products, I think of the world. What impact does this have on the world? Our future? The future of future generations? The floating island of plastic waste in the ocean?

Doesn't matter how fancy the packaging is, it's still waste.

There’s a world of waste being created every day.

One package at a time, one person at a time, one city at a time, one country at a time. Every little bit of packaging adds up, especially when it's not recyclable.

Couldn’t we decrease the amount of packaging that comes with these products? Couldn’t we decrease the packaging the products are in themselves? I understand that pretty packaging sells products, but do we really need this much packaging? Some items come with a box (cardboard), a leaflet (paper), the product package itself that is made from perhaps three different materials (plastic, metal, and glass or rubber). This makes it very difficult to recycle the packages once they are done when they are made of mixed materials. Couldn’t we simplify? Or why not have reusable packages like they used to with lipstick and makeup compacts (a limited number of companies do this now, but it is not widespread)? And what about samples that come with purchases? Do we really need a new makeup bag every season? Do we really need that ugly lipstick they give us with a purchase? Or the serum we don’t end up using? Maybe if they let customers choose a couple of items a la carte instead of giving a bag full of set items (some of which the person will never use or perhaps the colour will not suit them) then we’d have less waste.

All these pretty packages don't look so pretty once they're piling up in a landfill, floating in the ocean, or even waiting to be recycled (if that's possible).

We need to rethink packaging before our world becomes one big pile of waste.

I'm only one person. Imagine how much waste is generated every day from the place where you live., the country where you live, the whole world.