Why We Use Plastic Packaging (The Honest Explanation)

We use plastic. PET and HDPE specifically. Bottles and tubes.

If that surprises you, or if it bothers you, I understand. Plastic has a bad reputation, and a lot of that reputation is deserved. The ocean doesn't need more of it. Landfills don't need more of it. And "sustainable plastic" sounds like a contradiction.

But here's what most skincare brands won't tell you while they're marketing their glass bottles and bamboo lids: the sustainability conversation is more complicated than "plastic bad, glass good." Significantly more complicated. And when you look at the full lifecycle, not just the end of it, the answer might not be what you expect.

This blog is about why we chose the packaging we chose, what the data actually shows, and what we plan to change as soon as we can.

The Decision Isn't "What Looks Most Sustainable." It's "What IS Most Sustainable."

Most people evaluate packaging sustainability by looking at the end: what happens when you throw it away. Can it be recycled? Will it decompose? Will it sit in a landfill for 500 years?

Those are valid questions. But they're the last questions in a much longer chain. The full picture includes production (how much energy, water, and emissions does it take to make?), transportation (how much does it weigh and how far does it travel?), durability (how often does it break in transit, requiring replacement?), and then, finally, end-of-life (how is it disposed of?).

This is called a lifecycle analysis. And when you run one, the results are counterintuitive.

The Numbers Nobody Puts on the Label

Here's a snapshot comparing the three most common packaging materials in personal care:

Energy to produce: PET plastic bottle: 11 million BTU. Aluminum can: 16 million BTU. Glass bottle: 26.6 million BTU.

CO2 equivalent emissions: PET plastic: 1,125. Aluminum: 2,766. Glass: 4,848.

Glass takes more than double the energy of plastic to produce and generates more than four times the CO2. Aluminum sits in the middle. Plastic wins the production phase by a significant margin.

Transportation: Glass is heavy. Substantially heavier than plastic for the same volume. More weight means more fuel to ship, which means more emissions per unit transported. Every truck, container ship, and delivery van carrying glass bottles is burning more fuel than one carrying plastic. And if that glass breaks in transit (which it does, more often than people realize), the entire unit has to be reproduced and reshipped, doubling the carbon footprint of that order.

Durability: Your skincare products contain water as a primary ingredient. Water expands when it freezes. A plastic bottle flexes. A glass bottle cracks. Products sitting on a loading dock in January, in a delivery truck through a cold snap, or in an unheated warehouse are all at risk. Breakage rates for glass at the freight, retail, and consumer level are meaningfully higher than plastic. Every broken bottle means waste, replacement, and double the emissions.

None of this makes plastic perfect. It makes plastic the least damaging option at the production, transportation, and durability stages for a brand at our scale.

"But Glass Is Infinitely Recyclable"

In theory, yes. Glass can be melted down and reformed into new glass indefinitely with no loss of quality. This is technically true and frequently marketed.

In practice? Not so much.

In the United States, only about 33% of disposed glass is actually recycled. The other 67% goes to landfill. In Canada, the numbers are marginally better but not enough to change the picture.

The reasons are systemic. North America primarily uses single-stream recycling, where all recyclables go into one bin. Glass breaks during collection and sorting, contaminating other materials. Clean, properly sorted glass needs to reach a cullet (crushed glass) producer to be recycled, and there are only about 400 of these facilities in the entire US and 100 in Canada. The infrastructure doesn't match the recycling potential.

Compare this to Europe, where multi-stream collection (consumers sort by material and color) achieves roughly 90% glass recycling rates. The material isn't the problem. The system is. And in North America, the system doesn't support the promise that glass packaging makes on the label.

Does this mean glass is bad? No. It means the claim "our glass packaging is sustainable" is only true if the recycling infrastructure exists where the customer lives. For most of our customers in the US and Canada, it doesn't.

PET and HDPE plastics (recycling codes 1 and 2) are the most recycled and easiest to recycle plastics in North America. They're readily identified at sorting facilities, compatible with existing single-stream systems, and have established markets for recycled material. They're not perfect. But they're more likely to actually get recycled than a glass jar in a North American household.

"What About Paper? Or Bamboo? Or Sugarcane?"

Every paper-based cosmetic container you've ever seen is either lined with plastic or treated with a resinous chemical to make it waterproof. It has to be. Paper gets wet. Your skincare products are primarily water. A paper container holding a water-based formula without a plastic or chemical barrier would dissolve.

So a "paper" container is really a plastic-lined paper container. The environmental benefit of the paper exterior is cosmetic. The functional barrier is still plastic or a synthetic coating. And the composite material (paper bonded to plastic) is often harder to recycle than either material alone.

Bamboo lids, sugarcane containers, and other biobased options face similar challenges: stability, compatibility, scalability, and often, a hidden reliance on conventional materials to actually function.

We're not against innovation. When a biobased packaging solution can protect a water-based formula, maintain stability across temperature extremes, meet safety standards, and do all of this at a price point that doesn't add $15 to each product, we'll evaluate it seriously. That option doesn't exist yet at our scale.

Why We Don't Use PCR Plastic (Yet)

PCR stands for Post-Consumer Recycled. These are plastics made from previously recycled material, cleaned, melted down, and reformed into new containers.

PCR plastics (specifically R-PET and R-HDPE) are the gold standard. They have the lowest contribution to global warming, ozone depletion, acidification, fossil resource consumption, and water use of any packaging material studied. Lower than virgin plastic. Lower than glass. Lower than aluminum. If we could use them today, we would.

We can't. The minimum order quantities for PCR containers are between 10,000 and 30,000 units per container type. We're buying our packaging 250 units at a time.

That's the reality of being a small brand. The most sustainable option exists. It's just not available at our volume. When it is, we'll switch. That's not a marketing promise. It's a business plan.

What We Actually Use (And Why)

All of our containers are virgin PET or HDPE plastic. Recycling codes 1 and 2. The most recyclable, most widely accepted plastics in North American recycling systems.

We chose them because:

They're the most energy-efficient packaging material to produce. They're the lightest to ship (lowest transportation emissions). They're the most durable (lowest breakage and replacement rates). They're compatible with our water-based formulas across temperature extremes. They're the most likely to actually be recycled in the systems our customers have access to. And they're available at the order volumes we need as a growing brand.

We'd prefer PCR. We'll get there. In the meantime, we chose the best option available to us, based on the full lifecycle data, not on what looks best on an Instagram flat-lay.

The Uncomfortable Truth About "Sustainable" Packaging in Skincare

Most "sustainable" packaging claims in the beauty industry are aesthetic decisions marketed as environmental ones.

A brand switches from plastic to glass. The glass is heavier to ship, takes more than double the energy to produce, generates four times the CO2, and has a 67% chance of ending up in a landfill anyway. But it photographs better. It looks premium. And "glass" sounds more natural than "plastic."

The consumer feels good about the purchase. The planet doesn't notice the difference. In many cases, the lifecycle impact is worse.

This isn't about shaming brands that use glass. Some have legitimate reasons (formula stability, refill programs, markets with strong recycling infrastructure). But the blanket assumption that glass equals sustainable and plastic equals destructive doesn't survive contact with the data.

The most honest thing a brand can do is show the math. So that's what we did.

We're Not Perfect. Here's What We're Working Toward.

We use virgin plastic because it's the best option at our scale. It's not the best option, period. PCR is. And we're working toward the volume that makes PCR feasible.

We minimize single-use plastic in our operations wherever possible: shipping materials, sampling, raw material packaging. Some tradeoffs still exist. We make them consciously and revisit them regularly.

We don't claim to be a "sustainable" brand in the way that word gets thrown around. We claim to make honest decisions based on the best data available, and to be transparent about the tradeoffs we're making and why.

That's all we can do right now. And we'd rather tell you the truth about where we are than market a story about where we're not.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Basic Maintenance use plastic packaging? Plastic (PET and HDPE) requires less than half the energy to produce compared to glass, generates significantly fewer CO2 emissions, is lighter to ship (lower transportation impact), is more durable (less breakage and replacement waste), and is more likely to be recycled in North American single-stream systems than glass.

Is glass packaging more sustainable than plastic? It depends on the recycling infrastructure where you live. Glass can theoretically be recycled infinitely, but in the US only about 33% of glass is actually recycled. Glass also takes more than double the energy to produce and generates over four times the CO2 of PET plastic. In Europe, where recycling rates reach 90%, glass performs much better.

What are PCR plastics? Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) plastics are made from previously recycled material. They have the lowest environmental impact of any packaging material across production, transportation, and emissions. BM plans to transition to PCR plastic when order volumes make it feasible (current minimum orders are 10,000-30,000 units per container type).

Are your containers recyclable? Yes. All BM containers are PET or HDPE (recycling codes 1 and 2), which are the most widely accepted and commonly recycled plastics in North American recycling systems. Rinse them before recycling.

Why don't you use paper or bamboo packaging? Paper-based containers for liquid products require a plastic liner or chemical coating to be waterproof. The composite material is often harder to recycle than either component alone. The "paper" exterior is cosmetic. The functional barrier is still conventional. When a genuinely sustainable biobased option exists that meets stability, safety, and scalability requirements, we'll evaluate it.

Will you switch to different packaging in the future? Yes. PCR plastic (Post-Consumer Recycled PET and HDPE) is the target. It has the lowest environmental impact of any available packaging material. We'll transition when our order volumes reach the minimums required by PCR suppliers. That's a business milestone, not a marketing timeline.

Sources

U.S. EPA. "Documentation for Greenhouse Gas Emission and Energy Factors Used in the Waste Reduction Model." https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-03/documents/warm_v14_containers_packaging_non-durable_goods_materials.pdf

Geyer, R., Jambeck, J.R., & Law, K.L. "Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made." Science Advances. 2017.

Franklin Associates. "Impact of Plastics Packaging on Life Cycle Energy Consumption and Greenhouse Gas Emissions." 2014.

Jacoby, M. "Why Glass Recycling in the US Is Broken." Chemical & Engineering News. 2019. https://cen.acs.org/materials/inorganic-chemistry/glass-recycling-US-broken/97/i6

United Nations Environment Programme. "Single-Use Plastics: A Roadmap for Sustainability." 2018.

Gomes, T., Visconte, L., & Pacheco, E. "Life Cycle Assessment of Polyethylene Terephthalate Packaging: An Overview." Journal of Polymers and the Environment. 2019.

Vellini, M. & Savioli, M. "Energy and environmental analysis of glass container production and recycling." Energy. 2008.