Tesco’s bid to squeeze out wasteful toothpaste boxes

SUPERMARKET giant Tesco is moving to end the use of ‘needless’ toothpaste boxes – which could save 2,500 tons of waste cardboard if other retailers follow its lead.

Most end up in the bin as soon as shoppers get home, creating a mountain of waste from the 262 million packs Britons buy each year.

Boxes acted as protection for earlier, more fragile tubes, experts say – but these days serve only to make it easier to show off branding.

Now Britain’s biggest supermarket has convinced all the major toothpaste brands – Colgate, Oral B, Sensodyne, Aquafresh and Corsodyl – to try ditching them.

The trial of boxless toothpaste begins this week at 27 Tesco stores and, if successful, will be extended to all outlets – potentially saving 680 tons of cardboard a year.

Tesco started selling own-label toothpaste without boxes last November, to save 55 tons of cardboard a year. But with shoppers favouring branded toothpaste, the retailer knew it had to convince the likes of Colgate to follow suit.

Tesco buyer Felicity Bexton said: ‘Not only is there an opportunity to remove this needless packaging, but it also means being able to transport more tubes in the same amount of space, helping us take delivery lorries off the road too.

‘For customers, the move makes sense, because the first thing they do when they buy toothpaste is throw the packaging box away.’

If all retailers removed the boxes, the cardboard savings would be four to five times those expected at Tesco. Toothpaste wasn’t massproduced until 1873, when Colgate started selling it in jars and developing tubes like today’s – and boxes provided a layer of protection.

Branding expert Lou Ellerton, from Kantar, said the boxes then performed another function: ‘By the time they weren’t needed they had another use – for ad execs to show off the logo and the health claims.’

Georgia Stafford, analyst at Mintel, said: ‘There is an increasing perception that beauty and personal care products have too much unnecessary packaging.’