Buying toothpaste can raise all sorts of questions. Which brand? Do I want whitening? Are my teeth sensitive? Is plaque still a thing?   A question you may not ask yourself is why the toothpaste tube comes in a cardboard box. After all, the tube is what actually holds the toothpaste. It would be like putting shampoo or shaving cream into an additional package.   A Change.org petition is asking that same question while encouraging toothpaste manufacturers to ditch the cardboard box. The video above comes courtesy of Alan's Theory, a series of videos by a man named Alan who "thinks a lot," makes videos about his thoughts and puts them on Facebook and YouTube. Alan's only been doing these videos for a couple of months, but his toothpaste-box video is already his most-watched on Facebook with 4.8 million views. In it, he asks why in the world toothpaste comes in cardboard boxes that are only going to be thrown away or — at best — recycled.   He explains that 900 million boxes of toothpaste are produced a year — his sourcing for this information, which isn't supplied in the video, is likely this Quora post, and its answer is based on a 2007 blog post. He says that it just seems particularly wasteful to do this on such a large scale for a product that doesn't require additional packaging. Perhaps it's because the packaging looks good on the shelf.   The video cuts to Iceland, where 90 percent of toothpaste is sold without a box, Alan says, though he doesn't cite a source for that statistic. The video shows store shelves with toothpaste tubes standing upright, held secure by a plastic tray in a branded cardboard box. Alan says this presentation is driven by the environmental awareness of Icelandic consumers, and he films Icelanders giving reasons to the camera.   Alan then encourages consumers to reach out to people they know in the toothpaste industry, to share his video with them and to sign the Change.org petition aimed at toothpaste manufacturers and individual brands as well as organizations like the United Nations and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation.

Recycling the tubes and toothpaste alternatives

Toothpaste boxes do look good on the shelf, and it's almost certainly easier to package, ship and stock toothpaste that way. In the 1995 book "Waste Age and Recycling Times: Recycling Handbook," the editor explains that toothpaste boxes provide information about the product, serve a marketing function, protect the tube and prevent theft. The book also says the boxes are "often made from recycled paperboard," providing a market for wastepaper in addition to packaging for a tube.   It still seems wasteful, however. If corporations have found ways to make it work for a relatively small market — Iceland's population is around 350,000, per Iceland Magazine — scaling up such a process wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility, with a slow rollout to help consumers adjust to the new packaging.   Tackling the packaging of toothpaste is the low-hanging fruit of the discussion, however. Eliminating the packaging doesn't solve the fact that, using Alan's number, 900 million plastic tubes are going into landfills. It's doubtful that eliminating the packaging would offset the damage done by the tubes themselves after we've squeezed as much as we can out of them.   You can recycle the tubes (and your toothbrushes, for that matter), but it's not easy. Since products have to be cleaned before they can be recycled — this is why you can't recycle a cheese-riddled pizza box — it's unlikely you can just toss the tube in your city's recycling bin with wastepaper and glass bottles. There's still toothpaste stuck inside the tube, after all. Plus, toothpaste tubes are often more than one type of material fused together, and that requires special machinery to separate them. https://youtu.be/ZzhS73t9VO8 For a number of years now, however, Colgate and TerraCycle have worked together, offering a recycling service for all toothpaste tubes — any brand! — and toothbrushes. The irony in all this, of course, is that you have to put the tubes back into a box or envelope and mail them to the recycling location. Packaging, like life, always finds a way.   So what can you do if you really want to clean your teeth and keep the environment clean, too? Well, you can make your own toothpaste — MNN has three recipes for DIY toothpastes that are easy to make — and cut out the tubes and the unnecessary packaging entirely. Alternatives like like baking soda, charcoal, types of clay and even cinnamon can help, but they also have downsides. https://youtu.be/RLBDwNQzBDs You could also try something like Bite, a toothpaste-pill delivery service focused on making toothpaste healthier and more sustainable. You bite down on a cube, then brush with a wet toothbrush. Foamy toothpaste goodness occurs. The pills come in a recyclable glass jar and all the mail packaging is recyclable as well.   Whatever you do to green your oral hygiene, please keep brushing your teeth.

You’re already recycling paper, bottles, and cans, but there’s so much more that you can keep out of landfills. Americans use a shocking 100 billion single-use plastic bags a year—a huge number of which make their way into combined sewage overflows and then on to the ocean, where they pollute global waters and kill upwards of 100,000 marine animals per annum, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. You can recycle these and other kinds of soft plastics like dry cleaning bags; find a location near you on plasticfilmrecycling.org. Make sure you know about these 15 things that should never go in the recycling bin.   Any house with kids is likely to have a never-ending supply of crayons, some of which are too short to use or quickly fall out of favor. Instead of sending these non-biodegradable items to the landfill, though, you can give them a new life and new purpose by donating them. Programs like The Crayon Initiative collect them to distribute to kids in hospitals. You can keep those old, dried-up markers out of landfills as well with the Crayola ColorCyclerepurposing program.   Eco-minded toothbrushes, made with sustainable materials like bamboo or with disposable, replaceable heads, are helping to keep some of the world’s 3.5 billion toothbrushes out of oceans and landfills every year. But you can do a more efficient job of disposing of the plastic ones too. A collaboration between Sam’s Club, Colgate, TerraCycle, and the Kids in Needs Foundation lets you send your old ones for free to be upcycled into other products. Don’t miss these other 41 ways to save the planet in five minutes or less.   Tossed batteries are an ecological nightmare, corroding as they sit in the landfill and leaching toxic chemicals into the soil and the air, according to experts. Although they can’t be recycled with regular household metals, there are plenty of places that accept them for recycling, including Staples and Lowes stores. Battery Solutions will accept old batteries through the mail too. Your empty lipstick, concealer, and eye shadow containers are likely not accepted by your municipal recycling center. So what to do with these gloop-smeared bits of plastic when you’re done with them? Recycle Nation reports that many cosmetics companies are happy to take these tubes and cases off your hands—sometimes giving you a discount on future purchases—so they can turn them into new packaging. You can also send old packaging to TerraCycle through its collaboration with Garnier. On the other hand, these are 11 items you thought were recyclable but actually aren’t. Almost everyone’s got a drawer in the house holding mystery keys they’ve been hanging on to for years. Rather than throwing them in the regular trash, Recyclebank recommends calling around to your local recycling center to see if they accept them. Most towns won’t take scrap metal in curbside programs, but they might have options for drop-offs. In our increasingly disposable society, Americans generate close to 16 million tons of textile waste a year—a figure that seems to be growing and leads to a massive strain on landfills and the overall environment. The good news: Clothing and other textiles in good condition are upcyclable—take them to your local Goodwill or sell them to a consignment shop. TerraCycle sells boxes that you can fill with discarded fabrics, which the company will reuse, upcycle, or recycle. Learn more about what happens to your used clothing donations. Livescience.com reports that almost 54 million tons of e-waste like old computers, tablets, TVs, phones, video game consoles get thrown away a year around the world. Luckily, centers exist widely that will take this stuff off your hands and break it down into usable parts for repurposing or recycling. Find a site near you by plugging in your state on E-cycling Central. A lot of these centers take CDs and DVDs as well. Just make sure you do this one thing before recycling an old phone.   Remodeling your bathroom? Believe it or not, many recycling centers will take your old toilet and turn it into the concrete that goes into local roads and sidewalks. Chasinggreen.org suggests calling around to facilities near you to see what the procedure is—you make have to remove the seat and any screws or bolts before they’ll take your toilet off your hands.   Lions Club has long set out bins in easy-to-find locations, where you can place donations of old prescription eyewear—according to greenamerica.org, the lenses are re-ground so they can be donated to people in need. The site points out that many eye doctors’ offices collect used glasses as well. Check out these other 12 simple ways to reduce waste—and save money. It’s inevitable—every winter you unpack the holiday decoration boxes, untangle the strings of white and colored lights, only to discover that at least one strand of them has gone dead. Programs abound for recycling them, and some even reward you with discounts or gift cards. You can find a list of possible drop-off spots at houselogic.com. Read on for 30 ways to recycle just about anything.

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1. A copy of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up because the first step to a truly decluttered space is actually getting rid of stuff — and this will show you how.

    I mean yes, you can also totally watch the Netflix show an learn everything you need to know to get started! But the book's packed with extra motivation and tips. (Although I don't think it's the end-all be-all of how to live, I've used her system for my clothes and shoes, and it really does work.) Promising review: "It's soaked with knowledge and super inspiring! As a chronically messy person, this book completely changed my perspective on 'tidying,' what to throw away or get rid of, and how to find joy in your space again, how to reclaim it! Honestly pretty awakening, and I think absolutely everyone could learn something from it." —rainydayshopping Get it from Amazon for $10.45, Barnes & Noble for $10.58, Indiebound, or find a copy at your local library. (If the whole system seems a little — or very — impractical to you, though, I also recommend Rachel Hoffman's Unf*ck Your Habitat, $15.29 on Amazon).

2. A Zero-Waste Box from Terracycle, where you (or you + your neighbors, or high school, or dorm) team up to buy a box that you then stuff with hard-to-recycle items, and mail back to Terracycle to be recycled.

    Yes, basically you're paying for your stuff to be recycled (the reason your curbside collection doesn't take all of the things = recyclers want to make money. If they can't make money on it, then you have to pay for it to happen). Read more on Terracycle, and order a small "everything" box (well, almost everything) for $184, or a beauty products and packaging pouch for $41. There are also tons of free recycling programs through Terracycle, where the companies pay for you to recycle the stuff you bought from them (that your municipal program won't accept). And these aren't only hippie/earthy brands! They include Colgate, eos, Febreeze, Flonase, Hasbro Toys, and many others.  

One complimentary mail-in collection program calledTerraCycle changes the waste into plastic, Walton informed INSIDER. Cigarettes and product packaging are separated and after that merged tough plastic that can be remolded into plastic pellets, which can be utilized to develop a range of plastic items.

One free mail-in collection program called TerraCycle transforms the waste into plastic, Walton told INSIDER. Cigarettes and packaging are separated and then melted into hard plastic that can be remolded into plastic pellets, which can be used to create a variety of plastic products.

The standard toothbrush cannot be tossed into your recycling bin. It's made of hard plastic, nylon bristles, and packaged in plastic, most of which are not biodegradable. But in an effort to change the fate of many toothbrushes, Colgate and Sam's Club have partnered with TerraCycle to recycle them. You can ship your Colgate toothbrushes in for free and they will be upcycled into useful items like school supplies.