October 15, 2018

At Coastal Dental Care, we look after the oral health of the Gold Coast, Redland Bay and Tweed Coast. However, it is not only your oral health we are interested in – we are also interested in the health of the planet.

To help reduce our impact, we have joined the TerraCycle Oral Care Recycling Program. At each of our 13 practice locations, we have a designated blue recycling bin for your oral healthcare waste. You can drop off your dental recycling when you come in for an appointment or you can come see us in between your dental visits.

What is Terracycle?

The organisation TerraCycle offers free recycling programs funded by brands, manufacturers, and retailers around the world. Their aim is to help people collect and recycle waste which is hard to recycle.

TerraCycle recycles the vast majority of waste they have collected. From here, most materials will be turned into plastic pellets. These pellets can then be moulded into a variety of new products such as benches, picnic tables, and playgrounds.

What is the Oral Care Recycling Program?

TerraCycle has partnered with Colgate to initiate a free recycling program for oral care products and their packaging. The recycling program also offers incentives for participating businesses to donate to a charity of their choice.

They collect toothpaste tubes and brushes. Once received by TerraCylce, these items are separated by composition, shredded and melted into hard plastic. The hard plastic can then be remoulded to make new recycled products. You can find out more about the recycling process on the TerraCycle website.

What can you bring to a Coastal Dental Care practice for recycling?

You can bring any old manual toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss containers and packaging of all the before mentioned items.

Just throw them in one of our blue Coastal Dental Care recycling bins at one of our convenient practice locations. We will then collect the items and send it off to TerraCycle. Please note that electric toothbrushes and parts are not recyclable through the program.

What happens with the funds Coastal Dental Care raises?

When sending more than 1kg of recycling items to TerraCycle, our practices receive TerraCycle points. For every piece of waste, the practice receives 2 points which equals a dollar value of $0.02.

We will collect these points as they can be redeemed as monetary donations to a non-profit organisation or school. Each practice has chosen this individually, please ask our friendly receptionists at your location which organisation they support.

Recycling at Coastal Dental Care

To date, over 80 million people are collecting in 21 countries and have collected billions of pieces of waste, raising over 21 million dollars for charities around the world. Coastal Dental Care is very excited to be part of this initiative!

Support us and the TerraCycle program today – you can find your closest practice location here or book an appointment online today.