Narrator: The packaging for health
and beauty products is a recycling disaster.
Every year, people throw away
more than 100 billion of these items.
And the corporations that make this stuff
toss mountains of products that never even hit shelves.
Most recycling centers won't take them,
because they're just too hard to process.
But one British business has found a way.
Gareth: I'll tell you the hardest bit
is trying not to get burned by the machines.
Narrator: ReFactory turns the waste
into plywood-like boards that can be used for anything
from planters to furniture.
We decided to go and invest into something
that nobody thought would work.
Narrator: As more and more brands
want to be seen as sustainable,
this company helps them clean up their act.
So do these boards have any downsides?
And what does it take to recycle the unrecyclable?
About a third of the cosmetics waste ReFactory handles
comes from collection boxes placed at stores around the UK.
People are only supposed to drop cosmetics packaging,
but all kinds of things end up at the factory
to be sorted by workers like Kurtis.
Anything you can think of, it's been here.
Narrator: He goes through about 20 bags like this every day.
Kurtis: So what I'm really looking for here is
metals, glass, and batteries.
So they all go to separate sections.
Narrator: Some products have a little of everything in them,
like makeup palettes,
which often have a glass mirror,
metal trays, and a plastic shell.
We'll split the makeup palette apart.
One will go into the metal pile, and one will go to the glass pile.
Narrator: Palettes from this brand can cost around $50,
and like a lot of items in this pile,
this one is barely used.
I never thought anybody would throw as much as they do away.
Narrator: Sorting like this takes time and money.
And that's one reason why many recyclers around the world
only take two of the seven kinds of plastic.
Plants often reject the other types,
along with anything that's too dirty,
and send them to landfills or incinerators.
ReFactory says it doesn't turn anything away.
I don't believe there's a material out there
that does not have a route to recovery or recycling.
Narrator: But manufacturers throw a lot of items away
before they even go to market,
including entire shipping pallets
of recalled, mislabeled, or expired goods.
Brands tend to be pretty secretive about this,
so no one knows how much they destroy.
But about 70% of the cosmetics waste ReFactory handles
comes from manufacturers,
including this luxury perfume by Tom Ford.
Perfume is considered hazardous waste,
partially because it's flammable.
Historically, that material
has 100% gone into incineration.
Narrator: ReFactory sends the glass and metal elsewhere
for conventional recycling,
and all of the plastic ends up here,
in the washing and shredding room.
Michael: It smells lovely.
It's a mix of soaps, shower gels, perfumes, anything.
So, yeah, people like to work in this area.
Narrator: This machine cuts the bottles and tubes
into pieces about the size of a peanut shell
and washes them with hot water.
Michael: We'll shred it first
to make it nice and small so it'll clean better.
Narrator: Then, empties are washed two more times.
The process requires a lot of water,
but the company says about half of this is rainwater
it collects and reuses.
Steven: To recycle the recovered
at least three, four times back through the wash.
Narrator: Once the pieces are clean,
it's time to shred them even smaller.
Michael: The material is fed into this big shredder.
And it's got a 20-[millimeter] screen on it,
so it'll take it down nice and small.
Narrator: Along the way,
a magnet removes some metal pieces,
like the tiny springs inside soap pumps.
Electrical currents pull out the others.
The clean pieces head to the mixing room.
This pulverizer grinds granules into a powder,
which will become the outer layer.
Michael: We powder the material down,
and we mix it in these big mixers behind me.
Narrator: A giant corkscrew
inside this machine stirs it all together.
The final blends head to the mill.
Operators cook up three layered boards
on machines that work like giant waffle makers,
laying down the outer coating first.
Today's client asked for boards
that look like a birthday cake.
Michael: We put the sprinkles on first,
which is bottle caps.
Narrator: The frosting is a white powder layer
that provides a smooth finish.
It's made from recycled items like.
Michael: Bottles, wheelie bins, crates.
Narrator: And the final thickest layer is the core.
Michael: That's the very difficult-to-recycle materials
what've got mixed polymers at different melt points.
Narrator: That part's key.
Pressing it into boards
means all the packaging can mix together
and nothing goes to waste.
Making something more sophisticated, like a water bottle,
would mean only using one type of recycled plastic
and blending it with a lot of new plastic.
This clamshell closes and heats the mixture
to about 410 degrees Fahrenheit.
Fusing takes about eight minutes.
Michael: And then we cool it down for about 25 minutes.
If we did it any quicker, it would be warped.
But we do it nice and slowly, that it comes out nice and flat.
Narrator: These cuttings can go
right back through the process,
along with plastic sweepings from the floor.
Michael: There's nothing that goes to waste from this process.
Narrator: The boards have lots of uses:
benches, bookshelves, planters, bus shelters.
They can even outfit a whole room.
It was designed to replace plyboard.
We do toilet cubicles and shower rooms
and all kinds of weird and wonderful things.
Narrator: But the product isn't perfect.
Steven: It's not a silver bullet.
Obviously, when these are cut and worked on,
they do create a microplastic.
Narrator: Conventional methods often have the same problem.
Studies have found higher levels of microplastics
in the waters near recycling plants.
ReFactory tries to keep the issue under control
by selling finished products, not building materials,
so it can deal with the shavings in-house.
Steven: The key to us is we know where that product is.
If that product becomes damaged, or they decide to change it,
we can recycle it back into the next product for them.
Narrator: ReFactory says it can recycle the boards
and goods made from them over and over.
Even so, there just isn't much demand
for products made from this stuff.
Steven: We gift a lot away.
So we do a lot of charitable events,
and we run a scheme called SchoolCycled.
Narrator: The company encourages its clients
to think up uses for the boards,
like decorating their offices.
Steven: We can refit this.
We can replace this.
So we can go as big or as small as you want.
Narrator: So how does a business turn a profit
making stuff people barely want?
Well, it didn't at first.
This portion of the business, for the first time
in the last two years, has become profitable.
Narrator: The revenue mostly comes from clients
paying ReFactory to take the waste.
Steven: It's all based around the success
of gaining so many brands on board
and making a success story out of what we're doing.
Narrator: Clients include Boots pharmacy
and the Body Shop,
which have waste-collection boxes in many of their stores.
Emily: People pay for a box, and as part of that box fee,
you will get your delivery and collection included in there,
and also a fee to process waste.
Narrator: And as the beauty industry faces criticism
for creating a lot of garbage,
more retailers are turning to recycling
to clean up their image.
Steven: So it's really refreshing
to actually see brands' approaches
in the way that they're doing for the first ever time.
Narrator: Here at the Body Shop,
this box fills up about every week.
People could put any personal-care products from any brand at all.
There's not just Body Shop items in there.
Narrator: ReFactory claims
its boards create less planet-warming pollution
than shipping waste to landfills.
What we found was there's actually a 50% saving
on carbon with a recycled board
versus putting that same plastic into a landfill site.
Narrator: Workers at ReFactory said
they were proud to be part of an operation like this.
Gareth: We're taking rubbish,
and we're giving it a new purpose, a new life, so to speak.
Narrator: The company has plans to expand,
but it will take a massive scale up
to address the sea of packaging waste.
Steven says the ideal scenario would be designing packaging
with its disposal in mind.
Steven: We've always had a very hard time
understanding why brands bring certain products to market
without actually understanding
if there's a recycling use for them.