How can toothpaste be re-designed to reduce it's impact on the environment?

Morning Dew is the re-imagination and redesign of toothpaste usage and packaging. Toothpaste, a seemingly innocuous consumer product, can have a significant impact on the environment and on the health of a person, considering the existing packaging and dosage. The design illustrates a shift in the consumption of toothpaste from continuous to discrete quantities. The change in the form of toothpaste influenced an innovative design of the packaging and the dispensing mechanism.

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Team Project

My Role

Collaboration with Chemical Engineers

Domain Research

Form, Mechanism and Manufacturing Process Selection

Physical Prototyping

The Challenge

The main challenge lay in the design of the discrete units of toothpaste, in terms of size and composition, as well as the ease of use of the product, with respect to packaging and usage with just one hand.

The Process

Result

The manufacturing process for the discrete toothpaste units required only a small change to be made to the original process.

The dispenser was designed to be placed on the sink counter and operated with a single hand and can be refilled. It is also easy to manufacture and recycle.
The design saw significant reduction in the overall carbon footprint and the CO2 emissions.
Morning Dew enables reduced manufacturing volume and hence, optimized logistics.

Morning Dew was received positively. We have been contacted by Colgate about the concept.