Yes, you read it right. Aveeno has gone sustainable. Now they’re not exactly all in yet, but you have to start somewhere. That said, the Aveeno Soothing Bath Treatment is their first step.
Aveeno Soothing Bath Treatment is made with a single ingredient, 100% natural colloidal oatmeal. It’s a skin treatment that creates a milky bath that relieves itch and irritation due to poison ivy, insect bites, sunburn, eczema and more.
What’s so exciting about this Aveeno product is that the packaging and ingredients are sustainably sourced. Plus, its manufacturing process produces lower levels of greenhouse gases and generates reduced industrial and hazardous waste.
Aveeno has been bringing us holistic health care solutions and therapeutic products for years. It seems the next logical step would be to make and honor some commitments to do so sustainably. For nearly a decade Aveeno has been making strides to do just that.
In 2009 Aveeno partnered with TerraCycle at which time they began upcycling their empty product tubes. They accomplished this through a project called Aveeno “Beauty Brigades.” The Beauty Brigades were formed across the U.S. to collect empty Aveeno product tubes.
Today, the Aveeno high-density polyethylene (HDPE) bottles and paper packaging are recyclable. Also, where possible, they are using a percentage of post-consumer recycled material (or PCR) when creating their products and in-store materials. Hence, in the words of Aveeno, “… whether you’re using AVEENO® Baby, Facial, Body, Sun, or Hair Care products, you can rest assured you’re doing the right thing for the environment.”
Then later in 2017, through their Earthwards program, Aveeno adopted NATRASURF as a product ingredient. NATRASURF is a sustainable surfactant. Specifically, it is an ultra-gentle surfactant made from potato starch with superior cleaning and high foaming capabilities. Besides being better for your skin, it’s also better for the environment than other alternatives. As a nontoxic, it is a readily biodegradable ingredient that’s 90 percent derived from renewable sources.
Overall, Aveeno has made great strides, but they still have a ways to go in terms of sustainable packaging. Ultimately, upcycling doesn’t quite resolve the matter of waste filling up landfills. At the end of the day it simply delays the inevitable. Aveeno bottles will ultimately still end up in a landfill somewhere taking decades upon decades to disintegrate. So while Aveeno is putting forth some effort we look forward to seeing Aveeno find more aggressive ways to improve their eco-conscious practices. It will be at that moment that we know that Aveeno has truly gone sustainable.
In the meantime, it’s okay to give credit where credit is due. So kudos to Aveeno for the accomplishment of a producing a 100% sustainable product, the Aveeno Soothing Bath Treatment.
