Hallelujah! Colgate Just Came Out With A Recyclable Toothpaste Tube

Your toothpaste tube is in for a much-deserved makeover. After five years of development, Colgate has announced a new one that can be recycled curbside.

If you're wondering why tubes weren't already recyclable, it turns out that making them more earth-friendly is harder than you might expect. According to an interview with the Association of Plastic Recyclers in Plastics in Packaging, tubes are one of the last remaining forms of plastics packaging we use every day that still can't be recycled. (Here's some other stuff you might be recycling wrong.)

Since the collapsible metal tubes of the olden days went out of style, companies have been making theirs out of a combination of plastics that are sandwiched between an aluminum layer to preserve the paste inside. This mixing of materials means that the tubes can't be broken down in a traditional recycling facility. In search of a nimble, recyclable plastic material, Colgate landed on a combination of different types of high-density polyethylene (HDPE)—the stuff you'll find on milk jugs and laundry detergent bottles.

The new tube shouldn't feel much different from your current one, and it will be available worldwide by 2025. Rollout will begin next year with Colgate's natural toothpaste brand, Tom's of Maine. Colgate—which is sold in over 200 countries and used in more than half of the households around the world by some estimates—has also partnered with the innovative new Loop program to pilot ways that their toothpaste vessels can eventually be reused.