UK | Marks & Spencer (M&S) has announced it has expanded its Beauty Takeback Scheme, in partnership with HANDLE, to 60 stores across the UK, bringing the total number to 100.
Dedicated beauty takeback scheme boxes are now available in new locations, including Birmingham Bullring, Cardiff, and Inverness, making the scheme more accessible to customers across the UK.
Launched in June 2023 as part of the retailer’s Plan A roadmap to Net Zero, the scheme has enabled customers to recycle any form of plastic or aluminium beauty packaging from any retailer by dropping their used beauty packaging into dedicated boxes located within the store’s beauty section.
Since launching, the scheme has processed over 1.6 tonnes of beauty packaging that otherwise might have ended up in landfills.
This year, as part of M&S’ ongoing partnership with HANDLE, the retailer has produced a wide-toothed hair comb made from at least 98 percent of the recycled packaging collected by M&S as part of their scheme with HANDLE.
The partnership with HANDLE formed part of Plan A, ‘Another life’, bringing together all the retailer’s circularity services.
From the Beauty Takeback Scheme with Handle, the new repair partnership with SOJO, and its long-running clothes donation partnership with Oxfam, which was formerly known as ‘Shwopping’, all initiatives now sit together as part of Plan A—‘Another Life’ to offer a more seamless experience for customers who are looking for ways to support a shift to a more circular economy.
“At M&S, we want to play our part in driving a more circular economy, and the circularity services we offer are key to this,” said Katharine Beacham, Head of Sustainability, Clothing and Home at M&S.
“Since launching last year, our Beauty Takeback Scheme has proven hugely popular, providing a convenient option for customers to recycle their beauty products. We’re delighted to be able to introduce the scheme to even more of our stores across the UK this month to enable them to give their empty beauty packaging Another life.”
M&S’ Plan A approach to circularity is focused on two areas: the retailer's design of its products to ensure they are made well and made to last and the services it offers customers to give their items another life.
