I've been looking at my used Colgate toothpaste tube and thinking it might be aluminum...but it's not: it's a laminate. Which isn't recyclable anywhere I can find, unless your laminate tube is from Tom's of maine and you wish to mail it back to them.

You can get crafty with the laminate, if you had the desire:
make a colgate toothbrush holder from toothpaste tubes

You have to save up five tubes, and it's not the most glamorous bathroom decor. Would be cute in a kid's bathroom i think, or an adult's retrostyle bath.

This site says one billion tubes are tossed in landfills each year!

recycling toothpast tubes

Someone in Scotland made this change purse:

toothpaste tube change purse

If someone could figure out how to do these, they could sell them on Etsy.com. I'd send my own in, even. Someone crafty should take this on.

I called the 800 number Colgate had on the tube, and no, they are not recycleable. I knew this, but mainly i wanted to give them a call to let them know people do care about this matter.

Too bad toothpaste doesn't come in refillable tubes. I think that would be a great idea.

It is extremely odd that something can't be done with them. Hopefully this is something they begin to tackle.

We recently went from a pick-up garbage service to going to our local transfer station which is pay-per-bag. So even though we're already incredibly light on our garbage, with all the recycling and composting we do, Bob is even more determined to reduce our garbage to zero. Which I love .