The year 1970 marked a milestone toward protecting the environment in the U.S. In the spring of that year, Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson created Earth Day as a way to “force this issue onto the national agenda”—and with more than 20 million Americans demonstrating in various U.S. cities, it did the trick. At the end of that year, Congress authorized the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which among other things, aimed to put an end to black fumes, toxic wastewater and burgeoning landfills.

Every year the EPA publishes a report on municipal solid waste (MSW), recycling, and disposal. In 2009, Americans produced about 243 million tons of MSW, or about 4.3 pounds of waste per person per day. Slightly more than a third of this waste is recovered and recycled or composted, 11.9% is burned at combustion facilities, and the remaining 54.3% is disposed of in landfills.

The EPA strongly encourages practices that reduce the amount of materials discarded, such as waste prevention, recycling, and composting. This year’s celebration of Earth Day on April 22 brought forth a multitude of announcements of environmentally friendly programs launched by beauty brands [and others] following these guidelines. A number of these projects are covered in this issue.

In an industry in which packaging increasingly comes under the sustainability microscope, from consumer to supplier to retailer, eco-friendly practices have been adopted across the board, motivated not only by consumer demand, but also by brands’ increased savings through decreased materials and energy costs.

This issue’s feature on sustainability and eco-friendly packaging (p. 18) focuses on some of the innovative packaging that has been created in regard to these efforts. In addition, you’ll find exclusive stories from powerful voices at the forefront of the beauty industry’s green movement: Suzanne Dawson, Aveda’s vice president global innovation; Jenny Rushmore, global sustainability director, P&G Beauty & Grooming; and John Delfausse, vice president global package development and chief environmental officer, Estée Lauder Corporate Packaging.

We hope you’ll be inspired by all of this green thinking, and will keep us informed as your thoughts and designs evolve in this direction. Or please flag us down on the expo floor—at Luxe Pack NY, HBA and Cosmoprof NA—all of which have announced their own green packaging features.

Jamie Matusow

[email protected]