Colgate-Palmolive’s breakthrough toothpaste tube, on pace to be fully rolled out by 2025, is certified as recyclable by the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR). Its designers cleverly eliminated aluminum foil as the barrier layer in favor of a thin layer of EVOH that’s included in the multilayer LDPE body. By doing so, they made the tube welcome at Municipal Recycling Facilities, where tubes containing foil layers have always been a problem. Also important, they sacrificed neither barrier properties nor the familiar hand feel that consumers know and expect. And maybe most important from a recycling standpoint is that the multi-layer material works satisfactorily in the #2 curbside recycling stream because once it’s ground up, its materials match the HDPE stream. Visit this link for more on that.
Making it even more interesting is that Colgate intends to share it across the industry.
