Although in India, you often refer to toothpaste as Colgate, but still, when it comes to buying a toothpaste you still have a lot of questions.
Which brand? Do I want to whiten my teeth? Are my teeth sensitive? Is plaque still a thing?
But no one ever considered the most important question. Do you really need a toothpaste tube wrapped inside a cardboard box? I mean who keeps the box at home? It straight away gets tossed in the dustbin, right?
So, do you really need a toothpaste box?
You need to keep in mind that there is no point in collecting extra waste in your home. Well, these waste cardboard boxes are not just polluting your home they are also polluting environment.
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Luckily, someone finally asked this question. And that’s why there is a petition live on Change.org., asking toothpaste manufacturer to devise a new and less wasteful way to manufacture their product. In more understandable terms, they want toothpaste manufacturers to stop using that cardboard box.
But what’s the problem with that?
Every year toothpaste companies produce 900 million cardboard boxes. Don’t you think it is just wasteful, to mass produce something that’s not even required? Maybe, companies use these boxes because cardboard packaging is easy to handle and store on the shelf.
Well, it’s doesn’t look like a good enough reason to create waste in society and Iceland knows that. 90 percent of toothpaste sold in Iceland comes without a box. This proves that anyone can use toothpaste without a cardboard box.
Apart from locals of Iceland, there are many environmentalists who are also trying to find the reason why there is a need to have cardboard box over your toothpaste? Then, why doesn’t everyone start accepting toothpaste without outer cardboard packaging? It is doable after all, right?
The importance of cardboard box
Having said that, there could be logical reasons why this is required. Using boxes to cover toothpaste tubes helps its safe packaging, shipping, and storing on a shelf. But that’s not the real importance of using a cardboard box.
“Waste Age and Recycling Times: Recycling Handbook,” a 1995 book tells us exactly why toothpaste manufacturing companies are so obsessed with using cardboard boxes.
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Apart from just serving the shipping and storing purposes. Cardboard boxes used to package a toothpaste are also helpful in providing useful manufacturing information to the consumer. Other than that, cardboard packaging over your paste prevents the chances of adulteration.
Also, the boxes are made from recycled paper, which means they are not as harmful as you think.
But can’t we do something about this?
Petition on Change.org is targeting toothpaste manufacturing brands, individual companies and world organizations like UNO to make changes.
And it won’t be hard to make changes in our way to accept toothpaste. After all, Iceland is already doing it. Companies are already doing it in small markets. They know, they can help declutter the environment. But still, people are not paying enough attention to it.
Recycling is an opinion but no one wants to carry an extra burden. Hardly 1 out of 10 families consider recycling waste. But toothpaste boxes are not the only cause of unwanted waste.
If you want to make toothpaste waste-free, you also have to think about the 900 million plastic tubes that are used to store your paste. Again, one can go and try to recycle plastic but only if they are clean. That’s why you can’t even recycle a plastic tube, as there is toothpaste stuck inside it.
In Conclusion:
Life without toothpaste box is possible. No one really cares about a useless cardboard box which gets thrown away almost instantly, once the tube is out. Also, if everyone comes together and encourages toothpaste manufacturing companies to stop using cardboard box packing, it might happen.
And also, next time you buy toothpaste, ask, “Do I really need the box”?Â
