Meet Zerolla, The Purpose-Driven Dental Care Brand
By Canopey Team
Did you know the majority of mainstream toothpaste tubes ever made haven’t been recycled?
We use 300 million tubes of toothpaste every year in the UK. Spread end-to-end that’s about 75,000 kilometres of plastic, almost twice around the world!
Toothpaste tubes are often made of different types of plastics and in some cases a layer of aluminium, making them almost impossible to recycle here in the UK. Combine that with the fact that it can be difficult to squeeze everything out and the small numbers are likely to be even lower due to contaminated recycling batches.
These tubes will then sit in landfill or make their way to our oceans, where they’ll stay for hundreds of years before breaking down.
So what’s the solution?
Meet Zerolla: low waste dental care to the rescue!
Their concentrated tooth tabs, toothpaste and powder are amazing low waste alternatives to pesky plastic tubes, and they even have dental floss made from bionylon AND bamboo toothbrush packs for all the family.
We sat down with Zerolla founder Alex, to talk about his journey and how to talk about why he started a sustainable and eco-friendly dental care brand.
Can you share with us the story behind founding Zerolla? Was there a particular moment or experience that inspired you?
Keen to remove all chemicals from my oral care, I decided I would look at making my own. I started by purchasing a small amount of ingredients, just enough to make a few jars and test some formulations. The toothpaste I ended up with, was completely natural & effective, but most importantly it tasted great.
I asked my self: would this toothpaste help also those that, like me, are looking to keep clear of chemicals? Most of the so called ‘natural toothpastes’ only have a percentage of natural ingredients, not mentioning the single use plastic tubes.
Zerolla was born so that more and more people can transition to an oral care made without chemicals or plastic packaging.
Sustainability is a core element of the Zerolla brand. What led you to prioritise this in the business?
With Zerolla, we promise to make oral care free from synthetic chemicals. We do this based on our belief that mother nature provides perfectly suitable ingredients for our oral care requirements (like Kaolin, Diatomaceous Earth, Calcium Carbonate, Essential Oils, etc etc).
So we try to use the same principle into our packaging, choosing only materials that come from mother earth renewable sources, like glass, aluminium & paper.
Looking forward, what are your long-term goals for the brand and what are you excited about?
Since our official launch in 2024, the brand is getting great feedback, particularly our Toothpaste, Oil Pulling & Dental Floss, our best sellers.
We are grateful to see people switching to our eco natural oral care. So we look forward to keep welcoming more and more people to Zerolla.
How do you see your brand evolving to meet future sustainability challenges?
We’re in a time where new sustainable materials are constantly developed to meet the challenges.
We keep open to available options and ready for changes, even though our packaging is already practically zero-waste and free from single use plastic.
How has the journey of building your brand changed you personally?
Zerolla has been a personal journey, born from a personal belief and a mission to make it accessible to others. So building the brand has of course been really satisfying.
If you could go back to when you started, what advice would you give yourself?
There is not a perfect start, so I’m grateful for the journey that has been.
Discover all of Zerolla's eco-friendly dental care products on Canopey – visit our Zerolla brand page to learn more and shop the full range.