Currently, the world of beauty or skincare products is busy with the term sustainable beauty.
Many people are starting to become aware of the concept of sustainability. In fact, understanding this concept is no longer limited to sorting waste or using environmentally friendly products.
As time went by, the concept of sustainability also began to spread to the world of beauty and became known as sustainable beauty.
Sustainable beauty is a term that refers to beauty products that carry a sustainable concept. This means that the product is made by considering a number of impacts that can be caused, both on the environment, economy and social.
Apart from being safe for the environment, the sustainable beauty trend also certainly does not eliminate the main function of beauty products, namely as skin care tools or medicines that are safe to use.
This trend also encourages consumers to start paying attention to and reducing waste from single-use beauty products and contributing to social movements. This trend can be done by buying beauty products made from environmentally friendly materials and participating in sustainability campaigns.
The Impact of Disposable Beauty Product Waste
Basically, single-use beauty product waste contains plastic as its packaging.
This plastic is usually used by beauty product manufacturers to package hundreds or even thousands of products every day.
According to the Indonesian Ministry of Industry, in 2019, there were 797 small and medium enterprises carrying out their business in the beauty products market.
You can imagine how much plastic is released in a day from the production of these beauty products. This of course has an impact on plastic waste which continues to increase on land and at sea.
According to data from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (Kementerian Lingkungan Hidup dan Kehutanan; KLHK), Indonesia's seas have been polluted with 1,772.7 grams of rubbish per square meter (g/m2) and the total weight can reach 5.75 tons out of Indonesia's total sea area of 3.25 million km2. Worse yet, plastic waste is the type of waste that pollutes Indonesia's oceans the most with a total weight of 627.80 g/m2 or accounting for 35.4% of the total marine waste in Indonesia.
Meanwhile in the United States, piles of plastic waste have also become a hotly discussed issue. This is because according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency or EPA in 2018, almost 70 percent of the 14.5 million tons of plastic packaging ended up in landfills.
What's sad is that beauty product waste accounts for 70% of the total plastic waste.
This is of course very worrying and in fact, there must be a solution that we can do from now on and following the trend of Sustainable beauty is one of the solutions.
In sustainable beauty, there are several characteristics or principles that must be implemented by every company or brand, especially in the production process of beauty or skin care products, as follows:
1.Use of Raw Materials
The first principle in sustainable beauty is the use of raw materials used. Therefore, companies or brands that implement the sustainable beauty concept must pay attention to the origin of the raw materials for their production. For example, from organic ingredients or production processes that support sustainable concepts.
2.Environmentally Friendly Production Process
The next principle that must be considered apart from raw materials in sustainable beauty is the production process. In this case, the company needs to prepare the production process more efficiently and effectively with a sustainable concept. Especially in energy use, reducing waste, and also reducing environmental impacts.
3. Sustainable Packaging
Product packaging is one thing that is often overlooked. Even though this is very important, because once the product is used up, the packaging will definitely immediately end up in the trash. Therefore, companies or brands need to think about packaging with a more environmentally friendly concept. For example, packaging materials are made from natural materials that are easily decomposed or can be recycled.
4. Free from animal testing
The next characteristic that must be present in sustainable beauty products is "no animal tested". This is a term for products that do not use animal testing processes. This means that the production process does not involve testing the product on animals. The reason is, the testing process is considered as exploitation of animals which is far from sustainable principles. Therefore, the stage of product testing on animals must be eliminated for whatever reason.
5. Pay attention to social and ethical issues
Companies are required to implement ethical business practices. For example, fulfilling and paying attention to the rights of every worker. This includes supporting equality and providing space for local communities to develop.
6. Providing Customer Education
In principle, sustainable beauty does not only revolve around these products. But also how the company tries to provide education or information to consumers. Especially about using the products produced wisely and reducing wasteful attitudes. Apart from that, it also provides an understanding regarding the importance of sustainability principles in beauty products.
Sustainable Beauty and its Benefits
There are many benefits that can be felt by implementing the concept of sustainable beauty. In fact, the benefits can be felt by all parties, starting from the environment, society, consumers and producers. The explanation is as follows:
1. Take part in protecting the environment
One of the benefits of the sustainable beauty concept is that it helps protect the environment from the negative impacts of the beauty industry, such as air, water and land pollution. This can happen because the use of raw materials and production processes supports an environmentally friendly concept. So that the negative impacts caused have decreased quite significantly and have an impact on the environment for the better.
2. Suppress the presence of waste
The next benefit of the sustainable beauty concept is reducing waste production, especially from plastic and non-biodegradable materials. This is because sustainable beauty products usually use environmentally friendly packaging or are easily recyclable. So, the packaging can easily decompose as waste.
Of course, this condition will really help reduce the amount of rubbish or waste that damages the environment. As a result, pollution due to plastic waste in the environment will also decrease.
3. Encourage Local Economic Empowerment
The support provided to organic agriculture and local communities regarding supply chains makes the local economy more empowered. This is one of the important benefits of the sustainable beauty concept.
4. Supporting Technological Innovation
Sustainable beauty and innovation are inseparable, especially when it comes to environmentally friendly technology and production techniques. The reason is that this is able to support the creation of new opportunities in the industry and increase the progress of sustainable solutions.
5. Increase Corporate Responsibility
Socially sustainable beauty is able to represent the company's social responsibility towards the environment and society. So, it can improve the company's reputation positively and increase the trust of potential consumers.
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