Yes, Toothpaste Tubes can be recycled at some out of home recycling points.
If your Colgate toothpaste displays the recyclable tube symbol, then it can be recycled either through local council recycling (follow local council guidelines for recycling HDPE #2 plastics) or TerraCycle. You can find out more about TerraCycle where you are, here: TerraCycle Australia & TerraCycle New Zealand.
Pump action toothpaste tubes are easier to recycle and can be placed in the recycling if your local authority also collects plastic pots, tubs and trays.
Toothpaste tubes are often made with a combination of different plastics and a thin layer of aluminum. This mix of materials makes them hard to recycle and it is unlikely they are accepted through your curbside recycling pickup.
Were any of those old toothbrushes recycled? Don't worry if you weren't already aware… but toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes and caps, and dental floss containers can all be recycled.
Plastic toothbrushes are currently made from several different types of plastic, which makes it difficult to recycle. The bristles are made of a different plastic -usually nylon - from the handle which cannot currently be recycled.
Description. Electric Toothbrush heads are very hard to recycle, but these electric toothbrush heads (compatible with Oral B electric toothbrushes) come packaged in Kraft paper and no plastic packaging, meaning they are fully recyclable!
With 50 million toothpaste tubes per annum sent to landfill in Australia, this is a welcome development from Colgate-Palmolive.
1.5 billion toothpaste tubes are discarded worldwide each year, and those tubes end up in landfills or worse, in our precious oceans. 10 million tons of plastic are dumped in our oceans annually - that's equal to more than a garbage truckload every min.
As the vast majority of toothpaste tubes are still multi-material items, they belong in the garbage.
Toothpaste tubes fill landfills
Every single year, 1.5 billion toothpaste tubes end up in landfills and the plastic in those tubes needs 500 years to degrade.
Toothpaste is a crucial part of our oral hygiene. On average, the United States throws away more than 400 MILLION empty toothpaste tubes, which can take over 500 years to decompose in landfills.
Most hard plastics coded 1 to 7 can be recycled in your yellow-lidded recycling bin, however expanded polystyrene foam, number 6, and plastic bags, which are usually number 2 or 4, cannot be recycled through kerbside recycling bins.
6. Containers do not need to be rinsed. You don't need to rinse your containers before placing them in your recycling bin. Although rinsing reduces bin odours, unrinsed containers do not ruin a whole load of recycling.
These early toothpaste tubes were made of tin and lead, and remained basically the same until a metal shortage during World War II led to mixed plastic and metal tubes.
Most toothpaste tubes are made from sheets of plastic laminate, which is usually a combination of different plastics sandwiched around a thin layer of aluminium that protects the toothpaste's flavour and fluoride.
Time to buy more. The obvious benefit of the clear tube, he says, is that consumers can see the contents and can easily tell how much product remains in the tube. This is a real convenience over opaque tubes because the consumer knows immediately when it's time buy more toothpaste.
TerraCycle team up with brands such as L'Oreal Australia and Colgate to help everyday Australian's reduce their waste footprint by collecting your old lipsticks, eyeshadow palettes, shampoo bottles, toothbrushes and tubes, and other skin and hair care packaging. Some of their programs are free, and some are not.
There's nothing pretty about the amount of plastic waste the Australian body care industry produces. In the last 12 months alone, a total of 179 million bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body lotion and deodorant were purchased, used once, and thrown away, and that was just through Aussie supermarkets.
Facts about disposable coffee cups
Australians throw out 2.7 million single-use or disposable coffee cups every single day. This adds up to 1 billion coffee cups thrown out every year. It's no surprise then that disposable coffee cups are a major contributor to litter on our streets and in our waterways.
Our clear LISTERINE® bottles are made of the #1 recycled plastic material in the world, and our clear PET bottles are recyclable in most markets. Remember to keep the cap ON when recycling to help avoid having them end up in the environment.
Next, download and print the pre-paid shipping labels and can drop off your electric toothbrush waste in a cardboard box at an Australia Post office.