What are the problems of toothpaste tubes?

Traditional toothpaste tubes are made up of various types of plastic and a thin layer of aluminum. Both materials if they are separately, they can be recycled easily. But with the current designs, they are become challenging for waste treatment plants to recycle.

Because plastic isn’t biodegradable in short time, these tubes can be in the land or ocean for up to 700 years.

What are the solutions?
1. Improving in design

Recently, a company in Japan has an improvement of toothpaste tube design; this is cardboard tube solution to reduce at least 30% plastic usage. They replace the outermost layer of tubes by paper.

2. Using toothpaste tablets

What are toothpaste tablets?

They are made without water and pressed into a pill-like form. In order to use them, you only pop a tablet into your mouth and chew; your saliva will break it into paste form. Then, you brush your teeth as normal process.

The advantages of toothpaste tablets

– Toothpaste tablets allow you to considerably reduce your ecological footprint. A plastic tube of toothpaste takes about 700 years to degrade. Knowing that a person buys an average of 4.4 toothpastes per year, this represents a huge amount of toothpaste tubes are used each year.

– Toothpaste tablets are harmless to your health. They are made from 100% natural ingredients. No toxic products enter in their composition or in your mouth

–  Toothpaste tablets are economical. This may seem surprising to you because their purchase price is often higher. But they last longer than traditional toothpastes.

– Toothpaste tables are packaged in glass or paper containers, eco-friendly with environment, so it has a lower carbon footprint.

Reference sources:

New toothpaste tube design cuts plastic use by 30%