A DENTIST has set up a public drop-off location for residents to recycle their oral care products and packaging.

Dr Hannah Neve, a dentist at Queens Park Dental Team has signed up to the Colgate and Hello Oral Care Recycling Programme offered by TerraCycle, the world leaders in recycling hard-to-recycle waste.

The drop off location has been set up at Queens Park Dental Team in Queens Park Gardens where local residents can drop off their oral care products and packaging – including plastic toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes and caps, and plastic toothbrush outer packaging – to be sent in for recycling.

Much of this waste is rarely included in local kerbside recycling collections, and is often destined for landfill or incineration.

Each item collected will raise funds for the Mouth Cancer Foundation.

Dr Neve said: “It’s critical to our oral care that we replace the products we use at regular intervals, but a direct result of this is waste.

“I started recycling with TerraCycle because I wanted to do what I could to stop this waste from going to landfill and ensure it gets recycled instead. The fact that we can also raise money for a charity doing life-saving work is a major motivator too.”

The collected waste Dr Neve sends in to TerraCycle is recycled by shredding, cleaning and turning into a pellet format which can then be used by manufacturers to create new generic plastic products, reducing the need to extract new resources from the planet.

For each unit of waste collected on its programmes, TerraCycle points are awarded that can be redeemed as a monetary donation to charity. By creating her own public drop off point, Dr Neve is benefitting the environment and raising funds to support the life-saving work of The Mouth Cancer Foundation.

She added: “So far we’ve collected more than 4,000 pieces of waste, and I encourage everyone local to our practice to make use of the drop-off point.

“It exists so we can all make a difference for the environment and for mouth cancer awareness, education and survival. You can find it at Queens Park Dental Team, 1 Queens Park Gardens, and its open Monday to Wednesday, 8.30pm until 6pm and Fridays 8.30pm to 2pm.”