Around 200 million lip balm tubes end up in landfills every year – a problem zero-waste beauty & lifestyle brand Ethique wants to bring to an end.
Ethique added lip balms to its range of plastic-free products to coincide with World Earth Day this month, launching them first in Australia and New Zealand ahead of a worldwide release this year, and online.
The new balms are packaged in 100-per-cent plastic-free, twist tubes lined with plant wax that can be composted at home – or dropped in a garden – when their use is at an end, the nutrients used in the packaging returned to the earth.
“Discarded plastic lip balm tubes are a common find on beaches around the world,” according to Ethique founder and environmentalist Brianne West.
“We buy almost 200 million every year and unfortunately, whilst some of them may be recyclable, statistically the vast majority will not be. This means that almost every lip balm tube ever made will still be on the planet somewhere.
“So I have wanted to come up with an alternative for a long time, but finding quality cardboard tubes with the right lining has been difficult.”
The range features five options, all crafted with a blend of 100-per-cent naturally derived ingredients including Moringa oil, castor oil, cocoa butter, jojoba oil, and candelilla wax.
Ethique sources its ingredients from fairly traded, sustainable ingredients sourced from farming cooperatives run predominantly by women in Rwanda and Samoa.
Ethique makes concentrated hair, face and body bars, sold by 4000 retailers across more than 22 countries.
