Personal Care & Beauty Product Packaging

Empty, dry cardboard, paperboard, food and beverage glass, aluminum, steel, and plastics #1 & #2's can be recycled curbside when empty of product.

Contact your brands for their take-back or packaging recycling policy. Consider reuse of cleaned packaging before disposal. Plastic sprayers, pumps, and droppers may be cleaned & reused, but are generally considered contamination in the recycling bin. Empty tubes for lotion, lip and eye products, and such belong in the trash, along with sachets or packets made of multiple materials like plastic, paper &/or foil/metal.

Learn about why recycling beauty packaging is hard & actions to take, like finding a shop to bring your own packaging to refill or choosing brands that sell refills.

Per CalRecycle, please do not put unmedicated lotions, cosmetics, fragrances, sunscreen agents, and similar products down the drain or into the toilet; the best "somewhere else" to throw these items is your household trash. Landfills are the best place at present to dispose of personal care products when they are no longer being used. Click here for medicated lotions, creams and shampoos, and here for nail polish. Old vitamins and supplements may be composted.