All toothpaste tubes to be recyclable — this is how they’re changing
Roll, fold, or scrunch? How to squeeze the last drop of toothpaste from a tube remains a source of contention in many households.
Those arguments may never end, but at least one issue is close to a resolution: where to dispose of the tube once it is empty.
British households buy 252 million toothpaste tubes a year and, despite the best intentions of many, they mostly end up in landfill.
From March 31, all toothpaste tubes should be recyclable across England, as part of the first stage of new regulations that aim to make household recycling simpler.
JON ROWLEY FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
All 295 local authorities with waste collection responsibilities will be bound by law. Under existing legislation, councils can have their own rules on rubbish and recycling.
Soon they will have to provide residents with four containers: for non-recyclable waste; paper and card; dry recyclables such as plastic, metal and glass; and food waste. In some areas it will mean that households will be given new bins.
The regulations mean that householders should have the same rules for putting materials into kerbside recycling bins wherever they live.
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Toothpaste manufacturers — including Colgate-Palmolive, Procter & Gamble and Haleon — have been preparing for the new rules since around 2022 by redesigning the tubes.
Previously most were multi-material, containing a sheet of aluminium sandwiched between plastic layers. This made them impossible to recycle.
Today, though, after a period of testing, trials and quality approval, more than 90 per cent of tubes are made out of recyclable high-density polyethylene (HDPE), the same material used for plastic milk bottles.
Sarah McDonald, head of sustainability at Haleon, which makes Sensodyne and Aquafresh, said: “We’ve turned toothpaste tubes from unrecyclable waste into packaging that can now be part of a truly circular economy.
“With more local authorities starting to collect toothpaste tubes, we’re urging others to follow suit and help rescue millions more tubes from the rubbish bin.”
Empty toothpaste tubes have been a recycling problem for years.
They are the second most “wishcycled” item — thrown into recycling by households who hope that they can be reused — behind drinking glasses (which can’t be recycled with bottles and jars). Almost one in three consumers wishcycle them, which can contaminate the whole bin-load and result in it being sent to landfill.
To ensure tubes are collected, experts advise that there is no need to wash them out or remove the lids, though as much toothpaste should be squeezed out as possible.
Tubes which are emptied can achieve a 60 per cent recovery rate (the proportion of a material that gets recycled or recovered), those which are not empty only reach around 16.7 per cent. Cardboard packaging can be recycled as usual.
In the past decade, overall recycling rates in England have stalled at around 44 per cent. It is hoped that the new regulations and bins will help.
Materials recovery facilities (MRFs), run by contracted waste management firms including Biffa and Veolia, sort, clean and group together recyclable materials into single material bales. In the case of plastics, they are then transported to other sites for conversion into pellets which are sold to manufacturers and used in new non-food products or packaging.
Adam Herriott, a specialist at the environmental charity Wrap, said that although some waste management firms were not ready to take toothpaste tubes, “lots of local authorities and waste management are trying very hard to work around that and make sure everyone’s compliant as far as possible”.
He added: “Simpler recycling is a massive leap. It stops the confusion. When you visit friends, family or go on holiday in England, you won’t need to work out what you can and can’t recycle. There’s no more guesswork.”
Whether it stops the debate about the best way to squeeze a toothpaste tube is another matter entirely.