The Great British Beauty Clean Up returns in March 2026, aiming to cut the industry's significant waste footprint. This initiative, spearheaded by the British Beauty Council’s Sustainable Beauty Coalition, involves retailers, brands, and professionals. The sheer volume of packaging is staggering: around 120 billion units are produced annually.
The campaign encourages a move beyond mere recycling, focusing instead on reusing, refilling, and rescuing surplus products. Victoria Brownlie of the British Beauty Council highlighted that the industry contributes one-third of all landfill waste. Solutions proposed include donating surplus stock to charities like In Kind Direct and repurposing materials with partners such as MYGroup, who transform compacts into construction elements.
GBBCU's strategy has three core aims: promoting refillable systems, donating usable products to combat hygiene poverty, and repurposing difficult-to-recycle materials. The initiative seeks to shift consumer habits away from a disposable culture and ensure usable products avoid landfill, working with organisations including This is Beauty UK, Beauty Banks, and The Hygiene Bank.
MYGroup offers a specialised take-back scheme for salons and shops to manage materials that standard kerbside recycling cannot handle, like mixed plastics and foils. Their pre-paid recycling boxes provide a traceable solution for professional waste, turning it into new materials. This partnership aims to remove barriers for businesses committed to reducing their environmental impact.
Oriele Frank, chair of the Sustainable Beauty Coalition, urged brands and salons to join the March event to collectively reduce waste. The 2026 campaign aligns with Global Recycling Day on March 18th and the UN International Day of Zero Waste on March 30th, providing clear focal points for industry action.
