Hurrah for Selfridges who have just announced that they’re removing all single-use wipes from their beauty halls.
Instead, the department store will provide customers with eco-friendly face wipes that can either be recycled or re-used. The news comes as part of the retailer’s commitment to tackling ocean waste as part of its Project Ocean campaign which was launched 10 years ago.
Daniella Vega, Director of Sustainability at Selfridges, said in a statement: “Single-use beauty wipes have been a staple of many beauty drawers, but they are incredibly harmful to the environment. During a recent Selfridges team beach clean, we saw first-hand the impact they have on our waterways and beaches and we were even more motivated to remove them from our stores.”
The decision came after the retailer conducted a survey and found that 20 per cent of consumers use beauty wipes at least once a day and 35 per cent of those consumers considered single-use beauty wipes a necessity to their beauty regime, while 13 per cent of consumers go one step further and actually flush single-use wipes down the toilet. Noooo.
Selfridges’ ban has been celebrated by industry experts who have been campaigning for the removal of these single-use wipes for some time.
The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) believes that wipes have been a major factor in contributing to ocean pollution: ZSL’s Senior Marine Project Manager Fiona Llewellyn said: “We are delighted that Selfridges has taken this bold decision to remove these beauty wipes from sale, as part of a wider commitment to tackling ocean plastic pollution at source, alongside our ongoing work together on the #OneLess campaign,”
In September 2019 Selfridges became one of the first big retailers to join the Fashion Pact, a coalition of influential fashion brands and businesses who pledged to work harder at saving the planet and supporting its people.
