Key Takeaways:
Selfridges launched a nationwide beauty and fragrance recycling program, Reselfridges Recycle, in partnership with MYGroup, a UK-based waste management, recycling, and remanufacturing business. Rolled out across all Selfridges Beauty Halls, the initiative enables customers to return empty beauty packaging directly in store.
The project specifically addresses a major sustainability concern: fragrance packaging. Often excluded from curbside recycling and other take-back programs due to its mixed packaging materials and residual hazardous contents, Reselfridges Recycles is making responsible disposal simpler and more accessible.
Reselfridges Recycles allows consumers to drop off their unwanted perfume, aftershave, or other fragrance bottles, including those still containing fragrance, into designated collection boxes.
“Fragrance recycling highlights why this experience matters,” said Steve Carrie, Group Director of MYGroup, in a press release. “These products are used at scale but are typically binned after use. Through Reselfridges, we’re applying our established take-back solution in a department store environment, where even the hardest-to-recycle items can be captured at scale in meaningful volumes and recovered safely.”
Selfridges has become an important leader in scaling take-back schemes as the UK increasingly holds brands and retailers accountable for collecting and processing beauty waste. As part of MYGroup’s larger, fully integrated recycling programs, this initiative aims to meet new extended producer responsibility requirements.
Across all Selfridges Beauty Halls in Birmingham, Manchester, and London’s Oxford Street, which attracts more than 20 million visitors annually, consumers can return their empty fragrance packaging regardless of brand or where the product was purchased. For every five items recycled as part of the retailer’s membership program, consumers are rewarded with a Selfridges Unlocked digital “Key,” which unlocks access to products, experiences and services. During a previous trial at Selfridges Trafford Centre, engagement with the program increased the number of Unlocked Keys collected by 271%.
After the collection stage, MYGroup manages the end-to-end processing. The company specializes in recovering materials outside conventional recycling systems, supported by permits that allow it to handle hazardous and complex waste streams. Items collected at Selfridges are processed at MYGroup’s specialist facility in Hull, East Yorkshire. There, materials and residual products are either recovered and returned to supply chains where possible or are remanufactured through the company’s ReFactory operation, which converts waste into new products and materials in closed-loop applications. The emphasis is on avoiding landfills.
This isn’t the first time MYGroup has worked on beauty and cosmetics recycling initiatives. The company has had prior success with take-back schemes at Boots, Harrods, and THG, as well as other programs with Elemis, Estée Lauder, and Superdrug.
“MYGroup has been working with retailers for many years to make beauty take-back a practical, scalable cornerstone of the sector’s commitment to recycling,” Carrie said in a press release. “Through our schemes, we’ve now processed more than 40,000 tonnes of returned beauty and cosmetic packaging—success and experience that has helped shape this ambitious Reselfridges collaboration.”
The UK’s extended producer responsibility was introduced last year and will require all UK organizations that import or supply packaging to report their packaging data and pay fees to cover waste disposal costs based on this data, in hopes of transforming UK packaging into a circular economy.