Flood of plastic toothpaste tubes in landfills prompts alternative, zero-waste solutions

By Anne Makovec

In the United States, we brush more than 14 million gallons of toothpaste on our teeth every single year. That’s roughly four to six tubes a person. When consumers are finished with the tube, research shows most end up in landfills.

Once the plastic ends up in a landfill, the tubes slowly fragment into microplastics that can get into the air, soil, and water.

At San Francisco’s Recology Transfer Center, it doesn’t take long to spot a toothpaste tube sticking out of the trash bound for an out-of-town landfill. Recology spokesman said toothpaste tubes, even new ones made from HDPE #2 plastic and marked as recyclable, cannot be recycled in San Francisco or in most other communities.

“It can’t be recovered in a modern recycling plant,” Reed said. “Recycling plants are designed for materials that are 3-dimensional like a soup can, a soda can, or a cardboard box or something like that. And we can’t find an end market for soft plastics. Mills just don’t want this kind of material.”

One exception is the Mt. Diablo Resource Recovery Company (MDRR), which provides waste collection, recycling, and transfer station services across Contra Costa County and other areas. MDRR has partnered with Colgate-Palmolive and Glacier to gather real-time data on the recovery of the newer HDPE #2 plastic toothpaste tubes using AI-powered cameras. Last fall, MDRR’s residential recycling program began to officially accept HDPE #2 plastic squeeze tubes in the blue recycling bins.

In addition, some toothpaste makers like Colgate, Tom’s of Maine, Arm & Hammer, and OxiClean have entered into collaborations with private recycling business TerraCycle to offer free take-back programs.

Meanwhile, a growing number of consumers are looking to go tube-free altogether. East Bay couple Elizabeth Stuart and Jeff Westman found a zero-waste solution in a refillable glass container: pea-sized tablets called ‘bits” made by Bite, based in Marina Del Rey, California.

“Take a ‘bite’ out of the jar and put it in your mouth and chew it,” Stuart demonstrated. “I get my toothbrush wet and then I start brushing.”

Toothpaste tablets are nothing new. They were invented as a niche product in Europe decades ago. But Bite revolutionized the market in part by getting all the plastic out of the equation. The company estimates the tablets have kept millions of tubes out of landfill.

The couple says they work.

“My teeth feel extremely clean when i use them, like really clean,” said Stuart. 

“The end result is that you get clean teeth and the environment’s a little better off for it,” added Westman. 

Former U.S. EPA Regional Administrator Judith Enck is all for alternatives to plastic tubes. She is the founder of Beyond Plastics, a nonprofit that seeks to abate plastic pollution.

“We need companies to redesign the tubes,” Enck said. “For instance, they don’t all have to stand up with that very large cap and device on the end.” 

She added that it’s not a bad idea for companies to think about using aluminum rather than plastic.

“Because with aluminum, you actually have a fighting chance to get it recycled and it would be recycled into new aluminum products and not downcycled into things like clothing and plastic lumber,” she explained.

Refill stores and zero waste shops around the Bay Area are also stocked with alternatives.

“There’s a lot to discover here. It’s kind of like an epiphany for a lot of people,” said Mandy Ladin, who owns The Filling Station on Vine Street in North Berkeley.

The Filling Station’s mission is to sell you less plastic, less packaging, and less waste. Ladin has partnered with what she calls the most sustainable local brands to refill personal products as well as household staples, including oral care products.

If you bring in your own container or take one of the donated ones at the store, you can fill up on toothpaste, lotion, as well as tablets. Because the products are local, they aren’t put on planes or trucks to travel long distances to get here. All of The Filling Station’s products are also sold in sustainable packaging.

“We cause things to change with our pocketbooks, and if we quit buying plastics, then they’re going to quit making them,” Ladin said.

Stuart and Westman agree.

“It’s really easy to reduce your plastic use, if you think about it,” Stuart said. “Find the products that you like that are not in plastic.”

Reed said he hopes they’re right and wonders if even more will sink their teeth into the effort to use products that don’t need plastic containers.

“There are solutions. There are simple solutions if we put a little effort into it,” Reed concluded.