Beauty Meets Sustainability
Cosnova, the cosmetics company, is gradually changing its product range to more environmentally friendly packaging. The Catrice brand is starting off with the “Glam & Doll” mascara. Four variants are now on sale with packaging made from post-consumer recycled material.
Since the late summer of 2020, Cosnova has been offering four variants of the “Glam & Doll” mascara in packaging that consists of 80 percent recycled PET. Compared to the previous solution using 100 percent virgin plastic, Cosnova thus saves 39 tons of virgin plastic per year. According to the company, this reduces CO2 emissions by 70 percent and water consumption by 35 percent per year. “We are proud to be a pioneer in the cosmetics industry with our packaging made of recycled plastic,” explains Axel Geiger, Executive Expert Purchase & Packaging at Cosnova. “Mascara is challenging in that it requires highly sensitive packaging, in which the interaction of brush, bottle and texture is very precisely coordinated”.
Reduce packaging material
Cosnova is already working on converting the other five versions of the Catrice “Glam & Doll” Mascara. In spring 2021, these are to be launched on the market in new packaging made of recycled material. By 2025, the company wants to make up to 75 percent of its product brands’ packaging recyclable. At least 50 percent of the packaging is to consist of recycled material. Cosnova also wants to save 30 percent of packaging material. “The best thing, of course, is packaging waste that doesn’t even occur in the first place – that’s why we are focusing on minimalism in packaging,” says Daniela Soukup, Senior Manager Corporate Responsibility. “However, there are types of plastics where recycled materials are not yet available in the purity and quality we need for cosmetic products”.
The cosmetics company has also been using recycled inserts in the Catrice brand beauty counters in stationary retail outlets since 2020. Here, too, the aim is to reduce the use of new plastic and instead primarily use recycled materials. In 2020, more than 25 tons of new plastic have already been saved in Catrice counters, Cosnova reports.
Commitment to recycling
In addition, the company points out a cooperation with the organization Plastics For Change: With the establishment and expansion of two plastic collection centers in India, Consova wants to help reduce the environmental pollution caused by plastic waste resulting from the lack of local sorting or collection-return systems. The collected and reprocessed plastic is to be fed back into the cycle as a recyclate and thus made usable again for product packaging from Cosnova.
