“Recycle Me”: Colgate-Palmolive encourages consumer recycling in US with breakthrough toothpaste tubes
18 Feb 2022 --- Colgate-Palmolive is releasing recyclable toothpaste tubes in the US featuring bold designs to raise recyclability awareness. The tube was previously approved by RecyClass as recyclable through HDPE streams.
“The Recycle Me! tube is designed to educate and engage consumers and the recycling community, who are both essential to progress,” says Dana Medema, vice president and general manager, oral care for Colgate-Palmolive, US.
The “Recycle Me!” product raises customer recycling awareness with bold messaging and enhances recycling at Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs).
The eye-catchy graphics will be on selected Colgate tubes, such as Optic White Advanced, Cavity Protection, Max Fresh Cool and Total Whitening. The remaining lines are set to be transitioned by 2023.
The awareness-raising design comes as Innova Market Insights pegs “Shared Planet” as the number one trend for 2022, pinpointing how consumers now rank planetary health as their number one concern, overtaking personal health.
Pilot testing recyclability
Colgate-Palmolive is also developing a pilot program for the recyclable tube in partnership with companies working with US-based MRF and reprocessors. The pilot will test the effects of educational efforts on recyclability rates in a county or municipality. 
The “Recycle Me!” tube is designed to educate and engage customers about recycling.
The program will also assess the quality of the collected tubes to be reprocessed. The findings and data will be implemented to develop easy-to-action practices for recycling tubes, which will be shared with communities and recyclers in the US.
The tube requires no extra steps, such as rinsing or cutting before throwing the tube into the recycling bin.
Traditionally, most toothpaste tubes are made with mixed materials and do not get recycled. On a global annual scale, this means that up to 20 billion toothpaste tubes are thrown away.
Knowledge sharing
The tubes are made of HDPE. This plastic is commonly used for milk and detergent packaging.
Additionally, HDPE has the highest plastics recycling rate in the US at 30%. The material is rigid and not flexible, but Colgate engineers combined different layers of HDPE to produce a squeezable tube.
Additionally, to promote recyclable tubes, Colgate has shared information about its solution with other companies, including competitors. The company notes that the market needs recyclable tubes available at scale to drive circularity.
In other news, Colgate-Palmolive is also exploring skin health in space. The company is setting up an orbiting space laboratory to investigate if exposure to microgravity will accelerate skin repair.
Edited by Venya Patel
