How did we ever cope before we could stand our toothpaste tubes up on end?
As a man of 50-plus I can recall the hours frustration of trying to make a semi-squeezed tube of Crest or Aquafresh stand upright on its tiny cap end. Of course it was futile and the toothpaste had to lay supine beside the basin or reside in a mug - the misery!
Oh, how life has changed since. Some years ago manufacturers realised the shame and hurt caused to millions unable to marshal their toiletries in a horizontal fashion and so came up with fatter cap-cum-flap-cum-lid which acted as a stable base. Now toothpaste tubes could stand erect and proud. What a major landmark in the development of civilisation, surely only a few steps down from the wheel or the plough.
What utter rubbish!
I am no Greta Thunberg (I’m a bit taller for a start) but I have done my bit for the war on plastics by approaching Colgate about the wastefulness of what I still consider to be the newer style toothpaste tube caps.
Call me a starry-eyed radical but I don’t need to stand my toothpaste tube on its end, for that can be the only reason for making the caps like this. These lids, which measure about 2cm across (almost an inch for oder readers) must use about seven or eight times the amount of plastic of the old type.
Yes, the flip-top remain attached so I don’t lose it - but when was losing the caps from toothpaste tubes a big problem?
Just 20 seconds on the internet revealed that Colgate sold 34 million units the US in 2019 alone (Statista). How many tonnes of excess plastic does that amount to?
Well, I weighed a Colgate Extra lid and it tipped the electronic kitchen scales at 6 grams. If half of the tubes sold in the US alone had the larger caps that would be 17 million times 6g which would equal to just over 100 million metric tonnes of plastic - equivalent in weight to a blue whale.
Much of that plastic must go to landfill - how many people think to remove the cap and put it in the recycling when the tube is all squeezed out?
A few months ago I spoke to a person in customer services at Colgate in the UK who said company was trying to cut down on plastic and were looking at their packaging but could not be more specific.
Recently I bought a tube of standard Colgate and was pleased to find it had the old ‘thimble-shaped’ cap.
Today I took one of the large caps from a tube of Colgate Total and, lo and behold, it fits the other standard tube (see below). A Cinderella moment of great satisfaction. The screw thread and nozzle size must be standard.
So, I say to Colgate, and other manufacturers, ditch these fancy caps and go back to the smaller variety. It will save millions of tonnes of plastic and you will save money on packaging - a saving which could be passed on to the customers.
And to all those people who must stand their toothpaste on end, save one of the bigger stye caps and reuse on another tube. As we should all know by now, reusing is even better than recycling.
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