Obviously the man’s name is Zahn [“dent”, en allemand], Thomas of his first name. In the window of his shop in Heidelberg [dans le sud-ouest de l’Allemagne] sits a sparkling skull with impeccable teeth, surrounded by tubes of toothpaste. Thomas Zahn, 48, sky blue shirt, ball at zero, dark glasses, makes his way between the boxes, behind the small counter. For a hundred and fifteen years now, his family has been helping people feel good about themselves.
In Thomas’s shop, we find the alpha and omega of oral hygiene. Japanese electric toothbrushes, interdental brushes, and especially tubes, tubes and more tubes. Most are plastic, a few metal, most in a cardboard case. Thomas Zahn has a hundred references in his assortment, toothpaste with kirsch from the Black Forest, others with retro design from Portugal. Some customers are willing to pay double-digit sums to smell the mango while brushing their teeth or lining their oral cavity with active oxygen.
But lately customers have been asking for more than toothpaste when they walk into Thomas Zahn’s shop – they’ve also been asking about the packaging. Especially those who buy organic. It’s new. And that’s not surprising.
Wishes and numbers
According to polls, companies and election platforms, everyone is indeed calling for an economy that is less harmful to the environment. That’s why more and more people are putting slices in their sandwiches that look like salami but aren’t made from a dead animal. This is the reason why companies claim to use only “green” raw materials – a poorly defined concept which often means lower CO2 emissions.2 to production. And that’s why politicians are insisting that the future lies in the circular economy. Everything would therefore go for the best in the best of worlds. If only there weren’t the numbers…
Because the more we hear about “recycling” and of “zero waste”the more the number of consumer products, waste and emissions increases. “Between the 1950s and 2015, 8.3 billion tons of plastic were produced in total, reveal the authors of theplastic atlas, published by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, which is more than a ton per person currently living on the planet.” And the curve continues to climb. Plastic waste is piling up instead of falling, despite enlightened citizens, innovative companies and committed politicians.
Toothpaste, the small common denominator
There are a multitude of related reasons for this chasm between what everyone says they want and what we actually observe. And maybe it’s morning [dans sa salle de bains] that we realize best. If there is one product that is acclaimed all around the planet, despite the diversity of forms it can take, it is the so-called “toothpaste”.
The hope that this tube holds is white teeth, no cavities, no pain. The result is a long serpentine of waste that would circumnavigate the Earth at least one and a half times if all the tubes of toothpaste purchased each year in Germany were placed one behind the other. Between 2005 and 2018, their consumption even jumped by 20%. And as much as the gesture of brushing your teeth seems simple, its consequences are complex. And how difficult it is to do something about it.
The tube of toothpaste is perhaps the lowest common denominator of polluting nations. Admittedly, it only makes up a small fraction of the global volume of waste, and recycling it properly won’t save the world, but where should environmental protection begin if not there?
A recent invention
The problem is still relatively new. A shop like Thomas Zahn’s would not have been profitable a hundred and fifty years ago. For a long time, people contented themselves with rinsing their mouths, chewing branches, polishing themselves with wooden toothpicks or pig bristles. In the 19the century, the wealthy would buy chalk powder or eggshells from the apothecary, flavored with peppermint oil, menthol or – yes, yes – sugar. The powder in question was supposed to improve the appearance of the teeth – because “nothing pleases more than clean, white teeth, and gums the color of roses”, as a French beauty specialist wrote at the beginning of the 19the century.
At the time, the main reason for oral hygiene was the fear of bad breath, until capitalism democratized tooth decay: the more industrial sugar you ingested, the more your teeth were spoiled. . The economy finds here the opportunity to solve a problem that people would not have had without it. In 1896, the soap brand Colgate marketed the first lead and tin tube on a large scale.
A trendy product
Thomas Zahn describes with uncommon truculence the relationship of the Germans to oral hygiene in general and to the tube of toothpaste in particular. The man regularly receives customers who open their mouths in front of their noses saying: “Look, do you think we can do anything?”
For the past twenty-five years, he explains, “toothpaste has become a trendy product again”. This is how you can find a toothpaste with aromatic herbs for 55 cents in a discount store and [dans sa boutique] another containing gold particles for 119 euros, gold toothbrush included. Sometimes Thomas’s customers just want whiter teeth or toothpaste “which makes so much foam that it comes out through the ears”.
A “hell” to produce
They are far from suspecting that these simple tubes are one of the most complex products of everyday consumption. Or, as Carolina Schweig puts it, “a sick” This packaging specialist has previously worked at Beiersdorf and Unilever. The product universe has become so complex