WINNERS and Pact are making it easier to give your empty beauty packaging a life beyond the landfill.

How it works

  • Clean your Empties

    At home, make sure your empties are clean, dry, and un-bagged. Review Pact's Guide to properly cleaning your empties. Your packaging can be any brand.

  • Check the Guidelines

    Find out if your empty packages should go to Pact by reviewing what goes in the bin below. While we can’t accept everything, you may be surprised by the wide variety of package types on the list of what’s accepted!

  • Drop your Empties

    Drop off your empties in the collection bin at a WINNERS near you, and we’ll help get your hard-to-recycle beauty packages sorted and onto their next life. Find a bin near you.

What goes in the bin?

Pact only collects hard-to-recycle beauty packaging, like tiny tubes, caps, compacts and palettes. Review this simple collection guide to figure out if your packaging can be accepted. If you’re still unsure, check out the WINNERS x Pact Packaging Drop Off Guide.*

*Pact’s Collection Guidelines will continue to evolve as we gain more insight from our community and recycling partners into local recycling capabilities. It is always ideal to check with your local recycling centers for the most accurate information on curbside recyclable items in your area.

  • You can drop off any beauty packaging on this list (as long as it’s empty, clean and dry):

    • Plastic, metal, and paper bottles + jars smaller than a yogurt cup or 2"x 2"

    • Plastic + aluminum squeezable tubes

    • Ceramic + porcelain containers

    • Colored glass bottles + jars (varies heavily by location; check locally)

    • Caps + closures

    • Pumps + dispensers

    • Droppers + applicators

    • Compacts + palettes

    • Lipstick/lip gloss tubes + applicators

    • Mascara tubes + wands

    • Plastic pencil components for eye/lip liner + brow pencils

    • Toothpaste tubes + dental floss containers

    • Silicone containers

    • Pouches

    • Sachets

    • Supplement bottles smaller than a yogurt cup or 2"x 2”

    Pact’s collection guidelines will continue to evolve as we gain more insight from our community and recycling partners into local recycling capabilities. It is always ideal to check with your local recycling centers for the most accurate information on curbside recyclable items in your area.

  • These items cannot be placed in Pact bins, and should instead be disposed of through curbside recycling or in the trash.

    Curbside:

    • Rigid plastic containers #1, #2, and #5 (when larger than a yogurt cup or 2" x 2", caps can stay on if the main packaging is curbside recyclable)

    • Stainless steel or aluminum ((when larger than a yogurt cup or 2" x 2")

    • Clear or frosted glass jars and bottles (varies heavily by location; check locally)

    • Cardboard & paper

    Trash:

    • Plastic containers #3, #4, #6 and #7 ( when larger than 2" x 2" or a yogurt cup)

    • Dental Floss

    • Aerosol cans*

    • Sponges + Brushes

    • Single-use wipes

    • Plastic + Foil safety seals

    • Nail polish + Remover*

    • Toothbrushes

    • Prescription pill bottles (check local recycler guidelines)

    *Products considered hazardous materials such as aerosol products, nail polish and nail polish remover should be disposed through proper hazmat disposal. Check for your location's hazmat disposal options.

    Pact’s Collection Guidelines will continue to evolve as we gain more insight from our community and recycling partners into local recycling capabilities. It is always ideal to check with your local recycling centers for the most accurate information on curbside recyclable items in your area.

  • After collection, Pact aims to find the highest and best use for the packaging material collected.

    -Mechanical recycling: Upcycling packaging material into another product of equal or greater value (e.g. new packaging) or downcycling into another product of lesser value (e.g. warehouse pallets, flowerpots)

    -Molecular recycling: Breaking down packaging material to its most basic molecular component so that it can be used as raw material in future products (e.g. packaging or textiles)

    -Waste-to-energy: Packaging that cannot be used in any other way is incinerated to generate electricity or fuel

    Material collected by Pact never goes to the landfill.

Together, we can help reduce the waste created by beauty packaging.

Beauty packaging is one of the toughest things to recycle. The containers are often too small, too flexible, or made of too many different materials, which means they end up as waste. We’ve partnered with Pact, an innovative nonprofit that finds the best path forward for your empties. We’re adding convenient Pact collection bins in WINNERS stores, so that you can join in on helping to reduce the waste created by beauty products.

Find a bin location!

Find your closest WINNERS with a Pact collection bin in store. No WINNERS x Pact Collection Bin near you (yet)? View Pact’s complete bin location map.

FAQs

  • Pact is a nonprofit collective uniting the beauty industry to solve our packaging problem. So much (so much!) beauty packaging cannot be recycled through curbside recycling programs — it could be too small, made of mixed materials, too flexible, or made of materials with no end market. Pact works to tackle these problems, divert packaging waste from landfill, and make beauty packaging more sustainable. Learn more.

  • Yes! The Winners x Pact Collection Bins are brand-agnostic, meaning you can discard any of your favorite beauty product empties at the collection bins.

  • If your empties aren’t clean and still have goop in them, they are considered contaminated, meaning they’re too dirty to be processed Pact or for their recyclers to handle the product (remember — recycling is a manual process, meaning items are sometimes hand sorted). Contaminated packaging cannot be repurposed and is sent waste-to-energy. By cleaning your empties, you’re increasing the chance that your packaging will get a new life.

  • Follow the WINNERS x Pact Packaging Drop-Off Guide for a step-by-step process to determine what goes in the bin and what to do with your packaging that doesn’t.

  • Below are some packaging cleaning tips for you:

    -Save a minimum of five empties before you clean. That way, you can clean multiple packages at once.

    -Take apart all caps, pumps, lids and closures so you properly clean each component.

    -Hot water and dish soap are your best cleaning friends.

    -Try to avoid running the water when you clean your empties to help reduce negative impact. We like to fill one big bowl or the sink with water and add all of the empties together to soak.

    -Straw brushes are great for cleaning tiny packaging, like caps and closures.

    -Tubes can be tricky to clean. The easiest way to clean tubes is to cut the top of the tube open, so you’ll be able to clean inside.

    -Mascara tubes are another tough one. We like to use a straw brush or a clean mascara wand to clean the inside with soap and hot water. Repeat a brush and rinse process until the clear water runs out of the tube.

    -Lipstick tubes are best cleaned with a small spatula or scoop. Roll the tube all the way up and scoop out as much product as you can, then use a small straw brush to scrub out any remaining product. Hot water is key here.