Did you know you are physically adapting to all your swiping, scrolling, and tapping?

We're changing our bodies and what they're able to do through our habits.

NPR's Body Electric, a special interactive series investigating how to fix the relationship

between our tech and our health. Listen in the Ted Radio Hour feed wherever you get your podcasts.

The beauty market is generating a lot of money, but also a lot of waste, and it isn't pretty.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech. I'm Lily Dremale.

Beauty products generated about $430 billion in revenue last year,

and according to an analysis from McKinsey, it's projected to grow by another 6% annually

over the next four years. But there's an ugly side to all of that growth.

Even as bottles of shampoo, moisturizer, lipstick, and perfume fly off store shelves,

it turns out we're buying a lot more products than we're actually using.

The beauty brand Ole has estimated the amount of purchase beauty products that aren't

actively used stands at around 80%. In Sweden and Finland, all that waste is the target of a

growing number of tech startups. They're trying to get us to waste less by having us shop differently.

The BBC's Maddie Savage has been speaking to some of them and reports the feedback on these efforts

is mixed. I'm on campus at Sweden's biggest technical university KTH, which is home to one

tech startup trying to cut beauty waste. It's founded by a former student, Celilie.

Elora is the world's first manufacturing as a service platform for beauty products.

We produce stuff on the market, so what sorts of things do you produce?

Now we have commercially available, well, with our clients, perfume, and soon-to-be nail polish,

and we have lipsticks on the market. Elora uses robotic technology, AI and 3D printing,

so customers can design their own products and they're made within minutes.

...