At TePe, we choose materials with a clear guiding principle: they must support people’s oral health – safely, hygienically, and effectively. When it comes to daily cleaning, performance matters. That’s why plastic, when thoughtfully selected, plays an essential role in oral hygiene. At the same time, we work systematically to reduce resource use and improve material efficiency over time.
Sustainability is part of the journey, but it can never come at the cost of performance or oral health outcomes. By applying design principles that prioritise usability and long-term durability, we ensure that more sustainable choices genuinely support prevention and help people build healthier habits. For us, purposeful material choices are not just about what a product is made of – they’re about how well it helps someone care for their smile today, tomorrow, and for life.
To ensure trust and transparency, TePe holds ISCC PLUS certification, a recognised third-party system that validates the sustainability characteristics of alternative materials throughout the entire supply chain, from origin to end consumer.
Mass balance is not our end goal, but an important step in our transition towards more renewable materials. Progress requires collaboration across the value chain and depends on factors such as material availability, technology development, and waste management systems. We remain committed to transparency, continuous improvement, and continuously finding innovative solutions over time.
TePe uses mass balance because it helps us:
• move towards more renewable materials without
compromising on product quality
• meet our standards when it comes to safety,
hygiene, durability and ease of use
• produce our products using existing equipment
instead of buying new, which would lead to more
emissions
Is mass balance massively misunderstood?
Mass balance? What is actually being balanced, and what mass are we talking about? We know it can be confusing, but let’s break it down. Mass balance is a way to increase the use of plastics made from renewable or recycled sources, while gradually reducing the use of virgin fossil materials. It is not something you can see in the final product, but a method used behind the scenes for sourcing and managing materials. Mass balance allows us to move toward using more renewable materials while keeping the same high quality in our
products. In simple terms, renewable or recycled raw materials are added into existing production systems and carefully tracked. This allows certified materials to be used even when they cannot yet be physically separated at every step of the production process.
