Lush Employees, Products Go Naked
Friday, September 5th, 2008
Lush employees go naked in San Francisco.
Who among us hasn’t done work in the buff? Pants sometimes take a backseat to meeting a deadline now that Blackberries, laptops, and home computers let many of us occasionally work from home. But going to work naked when you face hundreds of people a day? That’s what store employees of the cosmetic company Lush did last week to promote its “naked” package-free body and bath products.
Wearing nothing but aprons that read “Ask me why I’m naked,” employees at 27 stores across the U.S. handed out flyers that encouraged customers and passersby to consider the environmental impact of packaging. Yes, it was a publicity stunt, but it was a fun, good-natured way to inform people on an otherwise dismal subject.
The U.K.-based retailer says that packaging contributes 2 percent to global greenhouse emissions and plastic consumes 8 percent of the world’s oil resources. The State of California says that packaging makes up one third of the 66 million tons of waste Californians throw away each year.
Industry is the biggest offender of packaging waste, but consumers contribute to the pile, too. With that in mind, Lush sells many of its products, including shampoo, without packaging and in bars that are sliced to size. (Liquid shampoo, because it’s mostly water by volume, weighs more and takes more energy to transport. It also requires plastic packaging.) At a customer’s request, a salesperson will wrap bars in paper to take home. That, of course, defeats the idea of no packaging, so repeat customers often come in with a reusable baggie or soap dish.
More resources:
“Bare Facts on Packaging,” August 28, 2008, SFGate.com
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/chrongreen/detail?blogid=50&entry_id=29565
Use Less Stuff Report, for consumer tips and the latest research on waste reduction
http://www.use-less-stuff.com
