Most toothpaste tubes are recyclable. So why is nobody recycling them?

When you’re brushing your teeth and you’ve squeezed out the last bit of toothpaste, you probably toss the empty tube in the trash. Few people realize that most toothpaste tubes are now recyclable—at least in theory. A team at Colgate spent five years redesigning its packaging so that it could easily be recycled, and rolled it out across the brand’s products in 2022. They also open-sourced the project so other companies could deploy the same approach. Now at least 95% of all...