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THE TOTAL PACKAGE

"It’s not good enough to just make natural products—they also have to packaged in ways that make them easy for you to use and attractive as well as environmentally sustainable. It’s a lot of fun researching all the options and making sure we’ve picked the best materials—you can rest assured you’re getting an effective and socially responsible product and package." Kate Bussell, In-House Design Leader

Using recycled and sustainable materials

Tom’s of Maine products and packaging are designed to be sustainable and recyclable. Each year, we use packaging made of post-consumer recycled paper board, which saves 6,000 trees and helps us to avoid:

  • 0.5 million pounds of solid waste
  • 2.5 million gallons of wastewater
  • 6 billion BTUs of electricity— that’s 60 years of electricity as required by the average U.S. home.
  • 6,000 pounds of air pollution

We Also:

  • Use compostable film made from corn to wrap our samples
  • Print our corrugated cases with waste ink
  • Use vegetable-based inks on all of our professionally printed materials and packaging
  • Wrap our bar soaps in biodegradable cellulose made from wood fibers
  • Use a deodorant stick made of a single plastic (#5 polypropylene) so that it can be recycled—the first of its kind in the industry. Employee Bill Hetzel tells the story of how we developed this innovative packaging.

A guide to recycling our products

Recycle symbol“We get a lot of questions about what materials can be recycled, so we created a list that sets out what we use to make our packages and how they can be recycled (all of them are recyclable!)” Patti Murphy, Consumer Dialogue Leader

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Strong deodorant deserves a strong package

Employee Bill HetzelFully recyclable and strong, our deodorant stick was tested by supply chain logistics leader Bill Hetzel by throwing it against a wall. Really.

Watch

Rules to live by

LavenderOur Stewardship Model is a practical tool for judging what does and does not belong in our products and guides our decision-making as we select ingredients and suppliers and formulate our products.

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