After four years of development, the recyclable tubes will be available later this year in two of Unilever’s biggest oral care markets: France and India. First launching in France with the company’s leading oral care brand Signal, the new tubes will be rolled out across its biggest range, Integral 8, which represents over a third (35%) of Unilever’s toothpaste portfolio in the country.
Traditionally, most toothpaste tubes are made from a combination of plastic and aluminium, which gives the packaging its flexibility but also makes it difficult to recycle. Instead of aluminium, the new tubes will use a material made mostly of High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE), which is one of the most widely recyclable plastics globally. It will also be the thinnest plastic material available on the toothpaste market at 220-microns, which will reduce the amount of plastic needed for each tube. To encourage wider industry change, the innovation will be made available for other companies to adopt.
The design has been approved by RecyClass, which sets the recyclability standard for Europe, as well as laboratories in Asia and North America. Meeting these rigorous requirements mean the new tubes can be recycled within standard HDPE recycling streams.
Unilever’s oral care brands partnered with multiple global packaging manufacturers including EPL (formerly Essel Propack), Amcor, Huhtamaki and Dai Nippon Indonesia (DNPI). In addition, formulation and flavour experts at Unilever were essential throughout the testing process to ensure the new tubes continued to protect the quality and taste of the product.
Babu Cherian, R&D Oral Care Packaging Director at Unilever said: “Recyclable tubes mark a key milestone in our packaging journey and, more significantly, they have the potential to transform the whole oral care industry. Together with our manufacturing partners, we’re making the new design available to any producers interested in adopting the new material, with the ambition to accelerate industry change.”
To drive further change across the waste management industry, Unilever is working with global recycling organisations to help ensure that the new tubes are collected and recycled. This will be the case in France, where consumers can put the new tubes in their home recycling bin ready to be collected and turned into new products.
This is only the start of Unilever’s oral care journey. Brands including Signal also plan to introduce more PCR (post-consumer recycled) plastic into their recyclable tubes by 2022 in France and other European markets. This will significantly reduce the use of virgin plastic and support the move towards a circular economy.
More broadly, the innovation contributes to Unilever’s commitment to ensure that 100% of its plastic packaging is designed to be reusable, recyclable or compostable, and its ambition to help collect and process more plastic packaging that it sells.
