Origins: Free 5-oz samples when you bring in your empty old cosmetic packaging.

I always wonder what to do with those spent lip balm tubes, deodorant dispensers, and all the other personal-hygiene packaging that goes in the trash. If it doesn't have a recycling code on it, you're not supposed to put it in your recycling, lest it taint the entire batch... but throwing it out just feels bad. Well, Origins is here to help with their year-round packaging recycling program.

"As part of Origins' ongoing initiative to protect the environment, the skin care company will take your empty cosmetic packaging –everything from bottles, tubes, jars, deodorant sticks and compacts regardless of the brand- to be recycled, when possible, or responsibly converted to energy. As a thank you for supporting the Return to Origins Recycling Program, the company will gift you with free Origins samples."


I have a feeling it'll really make their day if you start hoarding your shampoo bottles and Chapstick tubes now, so as to present them with a bulging, smelly sackful of plastic by the time Earth Day rolls around. Try it and see!