Plastic Squeeze Tube Recycling Project Reaches Major Design Milestone

With collaboration across the plastic recycling value chain, the Tube Recycling Project has reached a critical design milestone in the US on the journey to recyclability for plastic squeeze tubes. Stina Inc. launches PlasticTubeRecycling.org, a website that shares details about project progress to date.

SONOMA, Calif., March 21, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Plastic squeeze tubes are commonly found in households and contain many of the same products as plastic bottles, such as shampoo, conditioner, and lotions, as well as toothpaste. Stina Inc. began a US focused Tubes Recycling Project in 2015, with a group of stakeholders interested in understanding the barriers and working toward solutions to recycling plastic squeeze tubes. A complementary project in Europe launched in 2020.

A key challenge early on was some tubes were known to have design challenges to overcome (e.g., toothpaste tubes with aluminum barrier layers) and the compatibility of other tubes was unknown and needed more research. Collaboration of producers and multi-stakeholder engagement across the plastic recycling value chain made it possible to understand the recyclers’ perspective and thus coordinate innovation across the supply chain to achieve a critical step, design for recycling.

“Today, we are pleased to announce that the efforts of the Tube Recycling Project’s brand and converter companies have achieved a critical milestone. The data shows 90 percent of toothpaste tubes and over 75 percent of all HDPE plastic squeeze tubes on the US market today have designs compatible with a valuable recycling stream, the color HDPE bottle stream,” said Stacey Luddy, COO of Stina Inc.

At the start of the project, it was imperative to determine if recyclers could recycle plastic squeeze tubes with an existing commodity stream. The Projects have collected and shared critical information with reclaimers and industry on generation, market share, compatibility, and sortability to show compatibility throughout the recycling process.

Innovation and collaboration have been essential. The collaborative nature of the stakeholder groups involved in the Tube Recycling Projects was critical to innovating not only the packaging but the process. By harnessing collaboration between companies and key engagement with recycling organizations and other stakeholders, Stina Inc. and the Tube Recycling Projects laid out the key steps in the journey needed for a packaging format like squeeze tubes to be recycled.

Brands and tube manufacturers were able to assess the packaging design for recyclability requirements by the Association of Plastic Recyclers and RecyClass and use innovation to balance the design drivers and make significant progress towards tubes designed for recycling. This critical milestone would not have been possible without the efforts of all organizations involved in the products’ manufacturing (component makers, converters, equipment manufacturers) and brands that have committed to putting the new designs on the shelves.

“Design for recyclability is critical to providing quality material to reclaimers in order to produce quality feedstock for recycled content. The efforts that brands have made to convert the majority of tubes to compatible designs is great progress and we are happy to accept them,” said Scott Saunders, KW Plastics.

On March 20, 2024, Stina Inc. launched PlasticTubeRecycling.org, a website that outlines and illustrates the key elements of recyclability for plastic squeeze tubes, as a packaging format, and the progress to date on that journey. Additionally, the website provides an overview of the interconnected system of recycling and the actions we all must take to make recycling successful, from recycling recyclable items to the use in and purchase of items with recycled content.

Stina Inc. proudly acknowledges the project funders: Albéa, Berry Global, Colgate-Palmolive Company, Estée Lauder, Haleon, Huhtamaki, Kenvue, Tupack, and other companies and organizations that have supported this effort along the way.

Media Contact

Media Inquiries, Stina Inc., 1 844.687.4757, Ca*****@******nc.com, StinaInc.com

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SOURCE Stina Inc.