Impact believes in environmentally responsible manufacturing. The company has a no heavy metals policy, recycles process scrap wherever possible and works with clients in partnership to minimise packaging waste. Impact also believes it is important to supply high quality packaging that does not fail so as to fully protect goods to avoid spoilage and contributing to the waste stream.
All types of squeeze tube squash flat in landfill. They will not degrade, which assists landfill stability. Additionally any unused contents can not easily leach out of the tube.
Squeeze tubes are not biodegradable. In fact their best protective properties result from not being affected by moisture, chemicals and common bacteria.
In theory plastic tubes and aluminium tubes can be melted and recycled. This is mostly not practical because of cost and technical difficulties washing any unused tube contents.
Plastic tubes can be incinerated. The by products are carbon dioxide and water. However, unused or residual contents may also discharge other gases and vapours. Impact plastic tubes contain no PVC or polymers that could give rise to dioxins on incineration. Plastics used in Impact's tubes have a very high energy content which may be recovered in some incineration facilities.
Theoretically a portion of recycled plastic could be used to make squeeze tubes. However, food and pharmaceutical manufacturers do not want their products to come in direct contact with recyclates. Therefore Impact does not use recycled plastic because it is not practical to purge plastics processing equipment to guarantee that all traces of recyled materials have been removed.