How can I reuse or recycle … upright toothpaste tubes?
Every now and then, one of those upright toothpaste dispensing tubes makes it into our bathroom cabinet and when we reach the end of it, I stare at the solid plastic case and wonder if there is any way that it can be refilled, reused or recycled?
Does anyone know if the companies take them back at all?
Or if there are any other alternatives? It seems like it should be refillable with something or other (liquid soap?) but I’m not sure how I’d go about doing it – any ideas?
Couldn’t you just squirt the liquid soap down the opening bit? Might be a bit messy though, i don’t know because i use the squeezy ones… Hey there’s a sugestion! How do you recycle the squeezy ones?
i dont know. thats what im trying to figure out for this project.
i neeeeeddddddddddd help!!!!!!!!!!!! i have to know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! someone!!!!!!!!!!
Is the container pressurized?
You could drill a hole in the bottom, coat the inside with paint and use it to hide stuff.
You could cut the tube into pieces and use them as cookie cutters or molds.
Hard to say… I haven’t seen these in years.
They are plastic, so they could be recycled. Put them into your recycling bin
Most councils won’t recycle mixed plastics, which I suspect these are. They also only recycle certain types of plastics, which are usually not the kinds used for this sort of packaging.
I really think the answer with this one is probably not to buy them any more.
Maybe the best thing to do with the one you have is to return it to the company (their address should be printed on the label) and ask them to take some responsibility – where can you recycle it, what effort have they ever made to deal with the waste created by their packaging, etc. That’ll get rid of it and might prompt them to think a bit.
I am sick to death of this throw away culture in which we live,in particular tooth paste dispensers,£1+/tube £2+/pump action container,expensive peice of plastic just to dispense it.
they have a one way metal retainer so it cannot be retracted but it can be overcome and as a design engineer i am working on a cheap plastic tool to allow retraction and refilling from ordinary tube.,it will be done
Watch this space
DjH
@djharvey… still waiting
DjH you are so spot on about our throw away culture! I had never seen one of those stand up tubes before, but I refuse to buy stuff like that.
As for the plastic ones that you squeeze, I have some good news for you
Try this: First, Clean them out really good. Then, ask a doc or a vet to give you a syringe(without the needle!), and use this to start refilling
your tubes with goodies for healthy snacks at work. I’ve got peanut butter in one, honey in another, hersheys chocolate syrup(it’s non-fat and good on apple slices), and a good stash of ritz crackers & other stuff along these lines. You can also make home-made toothpaste!
I dismantle mine and put them into the recycling in their constituent parts there’s only one bit that looks like it’s rubbery silicon-y which I throw away into the regular trash. Just takes a little bit of brute force with a blunt pointy knife(to avoid injury, take care!!) and a sharpening steel used for sharpening knives to push the pump bit back through :)