Watsons Extends Regionwide Recycling Program to Hong Kong with L’Oréal

In celebration of World Environment Day, A.S. Watson Group’s flagship health and beauty brand Watsons is extending its regionwide recycling program to Hong Kong. 

 

The move rides on the largely successful launch of recycling programs in Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia.

 

Watsons understands that its responsibility towards the environment goes beyond the product range. Because inspiring behavioral change amongst its customers is of utmost importance to help create a more sustainable world, Watsons has rolled out a regionwide recycling program with L’Oréal.

 

“At Watsons, we believe going green is the new beautiful,” said Malina Ngai, CEO of A.S. Watson (Asia and Europe). “We made it our purpose to do the right things for our customers and the planet. Sharing a common sustainability vision with L’Oréal, we appreciate this beauty of recycling partnership in the region to educate customers as well as engage them in action so that together we can create a bigger impact to the planet today and tomorrow.”

 

In Taiwan, Watsons has worked with Maybelline to set up recycling bins in stores. For every empty bottle that is recycled, Maybelline will make a donation to Re-Think to run sustainability education programs. In Thailand, Watsons’ customers can recycle their PET plastic bottles at the Garnier Refund Machine in selected stores and earn a free Garnier Pink Micellar Water. In Indonesia, Watsons has launched a recycling program with Garnier to encourage customers to recycle plastic bottles at Watsons stores.

To further widen its sustainability impact, the regionwide recycling program has been extended to the fourth market, Hong Kong. To accelerate its sustainability endeavors, Watsons Hong Kong has partnered with L’Oréal to roll out the “Beauty for the Future” recycling campaign. Though the campaign, customers can recycle cleaned containers of any beauty brand, including foundation bottles, mascara wands, skincare tubs, and lipstick tubes to any one of the 170 Watsons stores across the city in exchange for rewards in the city’s largest loyalty platform MoneyBack.

 

Once collected, V Cycle will break down the wastes, separate them by materials, and work with local partners to transform them into new raw materials. The scaled-up campaign goal is to collect 250,000 containers in the 12 months following the official launch, which is equivalent to the height of two Mount Everests when stacked up.

 

“Pre-loved beauty packages have their place, but that place is not in landfills. Our goal is to meet it head- on with the first cross-brand recycling program involving 18 of our beauty brands in 2021. Today, we are thrilled to work with partners along the value chain to expand the program and positively impact people’s lives while preserving the planet,” said Eva Yu, president and managing director of L’Oréal Hong Kong. “With the scaled-up recycling campaign as part of our ‘L’Oréal for the Future’ sustainability program, we want to further inspire and influence how our consumers think and what they do about packaging wastes – not as something to toss out, but as a resource that can be recycled and used again, and sustainably, reducing the impact on our environment. Our partnership with Watsons and V Cycle will help make this a reality.”