TerraCycle: the #1 beauty recycler

Wondering what to do with old beauty products and packaging? While they typically shouldn’t be donated if they’ve been opened, used, or expired, you also don’t have to dispose of them. You can recycle them with TerraCycle! 
For over 20 years, we’ve been at the forefront of recycling the “unrecyclable”—trash, like used beauty products, that you can’t recycle through your curbside recycling service. 

Our first-of-their-kind solutions are unique because they’re available worldwide, offer different ways to participate (recycle from home or drop off at select retailers), cover the contents of your entire bathroom (from toothpaste tubes to mascara), and come with our recycling guarantee. 

Recycle beauty empties →

Recycling beauty waste around the globe

TerraCycle solutions for recycling cosmetics empties and other beauty products are available around the globe.

You can choose how to recycle from several free and paid options:

We also help businesses recycle in bulk, including one-time recycling options for large volumes of expired, off-spec, or pre-consumer products.

How TerraCycle recycles the unrecyclable 

We can recycle complex waste streams that aren’t accepted by municipal recycling services because we create specialized solutions for collecting and recycling hard-to-recycle trash. Plus, because of our innovative processes, there’s no need to wash or clean out any products before sending them to us. (Be sure you use or remove as much product as possible.)

Through a life cycle analysis (LCA) of our beauty waste recycling process, TerraCycle’s solutions were found to be 74% better for the planet than landfills and 67% better than waste-to-energy. The LCA evaluated environmental impacts across eight categories, including global warming potential (carbon emissions) and water toxicity.

98% of the waste collected through TerraCycle recycling programs is recycled.