In the next few months, you’ll likely be in need of a brand new, fresh toothbrush & other related oral hygiene products! When the time comes to replace your toothbrush with a new one, chances are you haven’t spent much time mulling over your options on how to dispose of your toothbrush — there’s a high likelihood you tossed the old toothbrush right into the bin, as most Americans do!

Toothbrushes that find themselves in landfills can cause great harm to the environment if they manage to make their way to waterways or other vulnerable areas. If you’re looking for ways in which you can be more friendly to the environment when it comes to your oral hygiene routine, consider taking part in the Colgate® Oral Care Free Recycling Program, a collaboration between Colgate® and TerraCycle.

This free recycling program accepts a wide variety of oral hygiene products including all brands of used or empty toothpaste tubes and caps, toothbrushes (non-battery/electric operated), toothpaste cartons, toothbrush outer packaging, and floss containers! Better yet, this program does not require you to thoroughly clean any products before dropping off or shipping them off. They only ask that any packaged items are dry and free from any dripping.

This program has several drop-off locations in Minnesota (unfortunately, all are localized to the Twin Cities region), but they also accept shipped packages. In order to ship, all you need to do is find a box, print the UPS label from their website, slap it on, and mail off your package!

Once your oral hygiene products are received, all items are cleaned and separated by material type. The materials are then recycled into raw formats that manufacturers use to make brand new products that then make their way to store shelves or dentist offices like ours!

Learn more about the Colgate® Oral Care Free Recycling Program here!