A Close Shave with Sustainability

Schick introduced right now the introduction of the Xtreme 3 Eco Glide, the primary disposable razor on the mass market to be made with 100% post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic. It’s also the primary and solely razor on the mass market that’s totally recyclable — razor and packaging, Schick claims.

With greater than two billion disposable razors winding up in landfills annually, Schick acknowledged the time for daring change is now, stated the corporate. This is only one instance of the work Schick is doing to ship on Edgewell Private Care’s Sustainable 2030 Report to cut back plastic waste throughout the class. Edgewell (Shelton, CT) has a world portfolio of males’s and girls’s disposable razors — together with the Schick Xtreme 3. Edgewell additionally launched its new US program on March 9, 2021, to encourage the recycling of its disposable razors and to offer an alternative choice to curbside recycling applications, which generally don’t settle for razors.

As of January 2021, all of Xtreme’s razor handles, together with Xtreme 3 Delicate, Xtreme 3 DuoComfort, Xtreme 4 Outlast, and Xtreme 5 Precision Trim, are made with recycled supplies, stated a spokesperson for Schick responding to questions from PlasticsToday. “We’re additionally minimizing plastic utilization in our packaging luggage,” stated the spokesperson.

Used Schick Xtreme 3 razors can be recycled via a 3rd celebration by registering on Schick’s web site, the place shoppers can click on on Get My Free Label to obtain a pay as you go UPS delivery label. Customers can use any empty cardboard field wherein to gather the used razors to ship to Schick.

Schick’s spokesperson defined that after the corporate has collected a big sufficient quantity of razors and razor packaging, the objects are despatched to a well known third-party, the place the razors can be cleaned and sterilized to take away any residue resembling shaving cream or hair. The razors and packaging are damaged down and separated by materials, such because the various kinds of plastics and rubber of the handles, and cartridges and metallic blades. The metals are separated by magnets or eddy currents, and the plastic supplies are separated through a mixture of strategies, together with sink/float and optical sortation. Metals are smelted and transformed into alloys; the plastics and elastomers are became pellets, flakes, or powder that may be offered as uncooked materials for manufacturing. The recycled plastics will then be utilized by processors to make new merchandise and packaging.

“As a world chief within the personal-care class, with revered family manufacturers and merchandise that our shoppers use every single day, we have now a duty to reduce our environmental footprint,” stated Anne-Sophie Gaget, Chief Progress Officer, Edgewell. “We’re dedicated to utilizing our manufacturers as a drive for good in order that they might have a optimistic influence on society and our surroundings, and I’m inspired by the progress we’ve made to this point. The recycling program and use of PCR plastic in our disposables is a milestone in our sustainability journey.”