Oral Care Recycling

Oral Care Recycling Program accepted waste:

Any brand of toothpaste tubes and caps (empty)

Any brand of floss containers (empty)

Any brand of toothbrushes (non-electric)

Any brand of outer packaging for toothpaste, floss, and toothbrushes

Drop Off Locations:

795 Allison Way, Sunnyvale, CA 94087 (drop off open 24/7)

877 W Fremont Ave D2, Sunnyvale, CA 94087 (drop off open 24/7)

Oral Care Recycling Program brought to you by: ZeroW.org, Colgate, TerraCycle


In addition to reducing plastic trash and turning it into something useful, this program also generates monetary donations from TerraCycle/Colgate to Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition to encourage more people to bicycle -- reducing Climate Change, increasing health, and making all our local streets safer for everyone.



Notes:

ZeroW.org manages the local collection in Sunnyvale and shipping using volunteer power.

Colgate funds the US national program and is a good example of Extended Producer Responsibility. In fact they are going above and beyond by handling oral care waste from any producer.

TerraCycle provides the logistics for material management and financial flows and ensures the material really gets recycled.

Colgate and TerraCycle send funds to nonprofits that support this program, in this case Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition for the oral care waste collected in Sunnyvale.

There are several ways you can help with this program:

  1. Drop your oral care waste at one of the above locations.

  2. Let others know about the program (word of mouth, email, NextDoor, Facebook, etc).

  3. Get your dentist or organization to put up a flyer about this program at their dental office to encourage others to bring their oral care waste to the above locations:

    1. Oral Care Recycling Landscape Flyer

    2. Oral Care Recycling Portrait Flyer

  4. Get your dentist or organization to set up an Oral Care drop off bin at their site and let us know the location so we can list it. When their collection bin is full, if you can be the volunteer to bring that waste to our main site at 795 Allison Way, that would be very helpful! Otherwise send an email to Tim@ZeroW.org and he'll pick it up by bicycle.