The Truth of Eco-friendly Makeup Bags

Although more eco friendly than traditional single-use plastic bags, recycled makeup bags, depending on what they are made out of, are more energy-intensive to produce, distribute, and recycle.

To be clear, plastic bags are rightly thought of as a menace that's hazardous to human health. According to the National Resources Defense Council, over a decade ago, the average American family took home almost 1,500 plastic shopping bags a year, clogging our cabinets, kitchen drawers, and landfills. Today the numbers are slightly better : According to National Geographic, as of 2021, customers in the United States use almost one plastic bag per resident per day. (Compare that to the fact that customers in Denmark use an average of four plastic bags a year.)

This is a story on whether the wholesale sustainable cosmetic bag can justify its existence.

Wholesale Eco Makeup Bag

According to a report by the United Nations Environment Program, “depending on their composition, reusable makeup bags might have to be deconstructed in a costly recycling process to separate the different materials”. Consequently, in many cases, eco makeup bags are not recycled. That means despite the best intentions, millions of eco cosmetic bags designed to replace the need for conventional plastic shopping bags, will also end up in landfills.

Another point to consider, not all eco make up bags are equal in terms of their recyclability. There are a wide range of eco friendly makeup bag options on the market, from the popular holographic bags that fold up to the size of a handkerchief, to the thicker TPU bags often made from recycled water bottles, constructed to have a longer life.

Generally speaking, wholesale eco cosmetic bags tend to be made of more than one material to give the bag added reinforcement and added street appeal. On a life cycle basis, stronger, heavier bags—no matter what material they are made from, although cotton is the worst culprit—will have a more substantial environmental impact. That's because heavier bags use more resources to create as well as distribute.

Although wholesale recycled makeup bags are still the lesser of evils, here are three things you need to consider before you grab that bags.

Eco Friendly Sustainable Bag Wholesale

Too much of a good thing?

Part of the problem with eco-friendly makeup bags is that they are irresistible and insidious in equal measure. Just like plastic bags, eco bags multiply, but unlike plastic bags, there is no formal recycling designation for eco cosmetic bags.

Used for promotional purposes and marketing of all kinds, eco friendly makeup bags' swelling popularity, according to the Atlantic, means bags that have been used very little (or not at all) can be found piled on curbs, tossed in trashcans in city parks, in dumpsters, and basically everywhere. Ubiquity breeds contempt—consumers have come to see them as disposable, defeating their very purpose.

Bag tip : One way to chip away your bag is to donate them. Use them to bring clothing donations to shelters, houses of worship or Goodwill, and leave them as part of the donation or take fabric ones to a textile recycling drop off location.

Put the use in re-use

To legitimize the extra effort and energy consumption that producing sustainable makeup bags requires, consumers need to use their makeup bags—a lot. One study out of the United Kingdom found that you'd have to reuse a cotton tote 327 times to achieve the same carbon-usage ratio as using a paper bag seven times, or plastic bag used twice.

Recycled Cosmetic Bags Wholesale

As strange as it sounds, plastic bags have the lightest per-use impact of the various bags the study examined. Cotton bags, on the other hand, in terms of production and distribution, actually have according to the Atlantic, “the highest and most severe global-warming potential by far.”

Bag tip : Whatever type of bag is used, the key to reducing its environmental impact is to reuse it as many times as possible. If you leave your recycled bag in your car the next time you're at the grocery store, go back and get it.

Beware of bacteria magnets

Sad but true—your eco bags, if you have been using them diligently, are probably filthy. Especially when bags are used for groceries, the bags can be breeding grounds for food-borne bacteria.

If the eco bags are used to carry meat, fish or fruits and vegetables, chances of bacterial contamination are especially high. According to the Cleveland Clinic, cross-contamination can occur when meat, produce, and pre-cooked foods are placed in the same bag.

Research out of the University of Arizona found that half the eco bags they sampled had coliform bacteria including E. coli. Worse, of those interviewed, 97 % admitted they had never washed their reusable bags.

Bag tip : Wash your eco bags regularly, either weekly or after each trip to the store, to kill all the accumulated bacteria. To take it one step further, you could designate particular reusable bags for meat and for produce.

Wholesale Eco-friendly Make Up Bag

And where you keep your eco bags matters. Especially in summer, storing your sustainable bags in the trunk of a hot car creates an optimal bacteria friendly environment, encouraging bacteria to multiply. Try storing them in a hallway or closet instead.

In the end, the best practice for eco toiletry bags is to have no half measures: Either use them all the time or don't use them at all. Using a reusable makeup bag once or twice, and then throwing it away, doesn't do the environment any favors.

After reading this article, do you have a new understanding of eco bags? In order to play its due role in environmental protection, every reusable bag should be used as many times as possible. By the way, we are a profectional wholesale eco friendly makeup bag manufacturer with 15 years experience. And we carry custom service for our customers all over the world. Please feel free to contact us at [email protected] to share your project and we are here to help!