About NT$68 billion (US$2.14 billion) of cosmetics, about 170 million items, go unused in Taiwan, a survey released yesterday by the Beauty Formosa Association showed.
Each cosmetics user said they owned 58 items of makeup on average, including lip gloss, makeup brushes, perfume, eye makeup, blush and base makeup, the survey showed.
They owned 17 cosmetic items that were nearly brand new on average, meaning that one in every three pieces remained unused, it showed.
Photo: CNA
Given an estimated 10 million cosmetic users in Taiwan, 17 unused products per person added up to 170 million items, association founder Yi Lin (林藝) said.
The survey also showed that each cosmetic user owned 20 expired products, meaning more than one-third of cosmetics expired before they were used up.
Seventy-five percent of cosmetic users said they had unused perfume, and on average each user had two bottles of unused perfume.
About 81 percent of users stopped using a cosmetic product within the last year, while five makeup products per person were suspended over the same period, the survey showed.
Unused or rarely used cosmetics were estimated to have taken up a total of 20,000m2 of living space and require about 1,333 garbage trucks for disposal, it said.
Assuming that each product costs NT$400 and weighs 50g, the 170 million unused items amounted to NT$68 billion in monetary value at a total volume of 8,500 tonnes, Lin said.
Such a massive volume of unused cosmetics have high societal and environmental costs if they are to be disposed of, she said.
Regarding why the cosmetics went unused, nearly half of respondents said the products’ colors or texture did not suit them, indicating that the waste mainly stemmed from poor purchasing decisions instead of product dysfunction, Lin said.
In terms of possession quantity, most users with 100 cosmetic products or more wasted them due to newly launched alternatives (88 percent) or impulsive shopping (79 percent), while users with 25 products or fewer wasted them mainly because they chose the wrong colors or did not like the textures, she said.
The association has launched a cosmetics recycling program in collaboration with Lush Taiwan, Lin said.
People are encouraged to donate unused cosmetics at designated Lush stores, or donate them by mail, she said.
The collected items would be transported to Re-Beauty Island — a resource recovery center set up by the association — to be sold to benefit charity, or, if the products are expired, to be used by mortuary makeup artists or art teachers, she said.
About 93 percent of the 604 respondents in the survey, conducted from Feb. 1 to Feb. 28, were women, and about 78 percent were aged 25 to 44.
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