Our packaging habit has gotten out of control and now, to the detriment of our environment, it’s a daily fix that everyone’s hooked on. Packaging is used for a number of reasons; to contain products that would otherwise spoil or spill, to protect fragile goods, to enhance the desirability of consumer products and as a marketing tool. There is undoubtedly a need for some packaging in certain circumstances, and LUSH has spent years asking themselves if packaging is absolutely necessary, if the packaging materials used are sustainable, reusable, recycled, and recyclable, and are there ways of getting the same products unpackaged? The answers to these important questions has led them to develop innovative new products, such as solid shampoo bars, conditioners, bubble bar slices, massage bars, hair henna’s, body butters, deodorants, all of which don’t require packaging. As a result, last year alone approximately 3 million plastic bottles were not manufactured, transported and disposed of because customers chose to buy LUSH’s solid shampoo bars instead of a bottled product.

LUSH wants people to “get real” about their efforts to combat climate change and to protect the Earth’s scarce natural resources by asking shoppers to take action by avoiding packaged goods and ‘go naked’.

Here is additional information about how LUSH is kind to the environment:

• All of LUSH’s paper bags, cardboard boxes and reusable tins are made from recycled materials.
• LUSH’s naked products are better for the environment—they are unpackaged, concentrated, last longer and weigh less than water-filled bottled liquids which take more energy to transport. For example, one truckload of LUSH’s solid shampoo bars would be enough for 800,000 washes but it would take 15 truckloads of liquid shampoo to do the same job. That means more pollution, and a much bigger carbon footprint.
• LUSH supports Fair Trade programs and sources sustainable raw materials.
• 58% of LUSH’s products are free of wasteful packaging, 65% of products are preservative-free and 100% of products are vegetarian. LUSH has a very strict no animal testing policy.
• Our gifts are lovingly wrapped with recycled paper and protected using Bio Foam/Enviro-Fill packing peanuts, which are 100% biodegradable.

The environment is one of the biggest global issues we face today and for Americans the statistics make sobering reading as we produce 245 million tons of waste in a year, meaning we each generate 4.5 pounds of garbage everyday, 80% of which goes into a landfill, making us the highest per capita greenhouse gas emitters than just about any other country in the world.

So now is the time to ‘go naked’ and avoid using those mountains of plastic carrier bags, plastic coffee cups and plastic bottles used for cosmetic products which all contribute to the growing environmental crisis.