Haleon Smashes Toothpaste Tube Recycling Target
Haleon has rolled out 1.2 billion recycle-ready tubes across the world, an achievement that the firm said is a “milestone” on its “journey towards realizing a circular economy for its product packaging.” Haleon is also introducing a more sustainable manufacturing process for several variants of its Sensodyne toothpaste brand, starting in the UK.
Haleon has surpassed its goal of producing 1 billion “recycle-ready” toothpaste tubes, two years ahead of its original 2025 target.
Reporting on its progress during World Oral Health Day, Haleon said it has already rolled out 1.2 billion recycle-ready tubes across the world, an achievement it described as a “milestone” on its “journey towards realizing a circular economy for its product packaging.”
To achieve its wider goal of making all product packaging recycle-ready by 2025, Haleon said “further interventions” are needed, particularly with regards to widening market acceptance of recyclable packaging and creating more effective recycling systems.
“Haleon is working with suppliers, peers, industry associations and the waste industry to drive global and local initiatives aimed at collecting, sorting and recycling packaging at scale,” it commented.
Within its own operations, Haleon is also introducing more sustainable manufacturing process for several variants of its Sensodyne toothpaste brand, starting in the UK.
“The new technique halves the time it takes to produce the toothpaste and significantly reduces water usage,” the firm commented. “Once fully implemented, Haleon expects the energy savings to be equivalent to the amount required to boil approximately 1.85 million full kettles of water per year.”
Plastic toothpaste caps will also be replaced by bio-resin versions made from waste products.
Working together with suppliers Neste, Sabic, LyondellBasell, Sibo, and Albéa, Haleon is aiming to swap out 700 million virgin plastic toothpaste caps across Europe, eliminating about 2,000 tons of virgin plastic from the supply chain in the process.
“Haleon plans to use learnings from the project across other geographies and categories as it continues to work towards its wider goal of reducing the use of virgin petroleum-based plastic by a third compared to 2022 by 2030,” it added.
OTC PLANS
Haleon is also pursuing plastic-free options for its OTC medicine brands — a somewhat trickier proposition given the challenges of maintaining strict safety and stability standards. (Also see "AESGP Annual Meeting: Sustainability Optional Now, but Not for Long, Warns Haleon" – HBW Insight, May 31, 2023.)
Alongside competitors Bayer Consumer Health and Sanofi Consumer Healthcare, Haleon has joined the Blister Pack Collective, which is looking at how to commercialize packaging firm PulPac’s sustainable dry-molded fiber (DMF) tablet blister pack.
According to PulPac, its DMF technology offers a sustainable like-for-like, scalable alternative to plastic blister packs.
Through a high-speed, low-cost production process, water usage and CO₂ emissions are minimized — leaving a 80% lower CO₂ footprint than wet-molded alternatives — creating an end product comparable to PVC packs in terms of design and tablet count.
The collective’s members are optimistic that the adoption of DMF will make a considerable dent in the more than 100,000 tons of plastic medicine packaging used annually.
PulPac hopes that 2024 will see testing begin of DMF packs — including exploring brand-specific designs — alongside regulatory work and scaling up production.
