Procter & Gamble Oral Care has unveiled its newest
packaging innovation across its leading toothpaste brands: Crest, Oral-B and
Blend-a-med. This announcement increases the level of recyclability of its
toothpaste tubes, as part of the P&G Ambition 2030 commitments of achieving
100% recyclable or reusable packaging.
The leading global oral care brands, Crest and Oral-B, and
the European brand Blend-a-med, will start the switch in January 2021, and will
continue until full conversion, by 2025.
Toothpaste tubes are used by millions of consumers every
day; however, its multi-material construction poses a challenge for recycling
facilities around the globe. The solution to this is the High-Density
Polyethylene (HDPE) tube, which provides the same product protection as current
tubes, and has been certified by North American and European recycling bodies
to be compatible with existing recycling technologies. These HDPE tubes can be
recycled where collection programmes exist.
For introducing the right solution and making its toothpaste
tubes more sustainable, Procter & Gamble is in discussions with several
HDPE tube suppliers and has already reached an agreement with Albéa to start
using its proprietary Greenleaf Generation 2 tube technology, which enables the
tubes to be recyclable wherever collection schemes are active.
Greenleaf Generation 2 tubes are recognised by the North
American Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR) as well as RecyClass and
SUEZ.circpack® in Europe and can be recycled within the existing,
effective HDPE bottles recycling stream.
To earn APR recognition, it was demonstrated that the
toothpaste tubes could be converted into quality post-consumer HDPE resin, and
then reused to make new plastic bottles.
RecyClass is an independent cross-industry platform that
assesses material recyclability and provides specific recommendations on how to
improve packaging design to fit current recycling technologies in Europe.
The platform certifies that Procter & Gamble’s “toothpaste
tube” technology is considered to be compatible with HDPE recycling. Moreover,
it certifies that both Procter & Gamble’s “toothpaste tubes with cap”
product will not have a negative impact on the current European HDPE containers
recycling.
“Toothpaste tubes are not largely recyclable today; with the
RecyClass certification for Albéa’s Greenleaf Generation 2 technology used
by P&G, however, we are on the right track towards increasing both the
design for recycling awareness for tubes as well as increasing recycling
quality and rates for the HDPE rigids stream in Europe,” said Paolo Glerean, chairman
of RecyClass.
In addition, the sortability of the tubes has been
successfully tested by SUEZ.circpack® following the RecyClass sorting
protocol, confirming that the tubes will flow into the correct stream and be
recycled with the HDPE materials.
“Accurate sorting is an essential step to ensure recycling.
That is why SUEZ.circpack® performed sorting tests in a fully operational
sorting facility in Germany. The facility and the technologies in place are
common for the European recycling industry. The results showed that the
packaging could be correctly sorted into the HDPE material flow. The
recognition of the plastic with Near InfraRed (NIR) technology was accurate and
consistent,” said Vincent Mooij, head of SUEZ.circpack®.
“P&G Oral Care started our sustainability journey many
years back and continue to reduce our footprint. To drive a more circular
supply chain, all of our production sites globally are qualified as sending
zero manufacturing waste to landfill, and our sites across the United States,
Canada, and Europe purchase 100% renewable electricity,” stated Steve Bishop,
health care chief executive officer of P&G. “There is much yet to be done;
however, we are proud of the steps we are taking with our leading brands, Crest
in North America, and Oral B and Blend-a-med in Europe, to achieve recyclable
tubes in the years ahead.”
Virginie Helias, chief sustainability officer of P&G, added,
“We have committed to enable and inspire responsible consumption through
innovation on our product and packaging. Our leading oral care brands touch
millions of people around the world. This new packaging innovation will
contribute to making the toothpaste tubes recyclable at scale in existing
recycling streams, hence, reducing our footprint and striving for circular
solutions. It’s no longer about if or what we can do, but how quickly we can do
it.”