A greener way to brush your teeth

When it was time to throw away my toothbrush, I stopped to consider what to do with my failing brush. I am a vicious, unrelenting brusher. Always have been. So a toothbrush life span is short in my household. I probably go through one Colgate Toothbrush a month.

In doing so, I contribute to the 50 million pounds of toothbrushes that are landfilled every year, requiring plastic to manufacture, and releasing greenhouse gases as they decay.

Enter you, my readers, who unanimously recommended a greener way to brush. 

The Preserve Toothbrush is made by a company called Recycline that makes all kinds of great green stuff.

Specifically, their toothbrushes (pictured above) are made out of 100% recycled material. Stonyfield Farm yogurt cups, to be precise.

When you're done with them, they can be recycled, since they are #5 plastic. Just put them in your blue bin.

Or better, send them back to Recycline (all postage paid!) and they will convert them into plastic lumber to make picnic tables. Or whatever else is it that uses plastic lumber.

Apparently the packaging they arrive in is recyclable and reusable, though I'll have to report back on that later once they get here.

The best part? At $3.19 a pop, Preserve toothbrushes are only $.20 more than my standard toothbrush.

Preserve toothbrushes are available at drugstore.com, which has free shipping with a $25 order. Looks like it might be time to stock up...

Thanks to Lu, Green Bean, and Arduous for the tip!

Comments

[Beth Terry]

Hi. I too use Preserve toothbrushes. I think they're the best alternative we have right now, although the "recycling" of them is still actually "downcycling" since they don't get recycled into new toothbrushes or yogurt containers but into lawn furniture instead. So, Recycline is slowing down the plastic consumption process but not actually closing the recycling loop, if you know what I mean.

Also, I'd be careful advising folks to put them in their recycling bins. Most cities would not recycle a toothbrush, even if they accept #5 containers. A trip to a recycling facility would reveal the reason for this. Waste goes by so fast on the belt, and the sorters are looking for specific types of containers that they know are probably made from the kind of plastics they can recycle. They don't have time to examine each toothbrush that goes by.

So rather than tossing in the blue bin, I would collect the used toothbrushes and send several back to Recycline at the same time, to save fuel miles. Recycline will actually make sure they get recycled and not landfilled or shipped to China (as far as I know.)

[Lu]

I would agree with the above comment that you should definitely send the toothbrushes back to ensure that they are being downcycled.

In addition, I would note that if you want to add to the entire cycle, you can send back your yogurt containers to Stonyfield. These are also made from #5 plastic and therefore cannot be recycled in most communities througout the United States. You can find a link to their mailing address and more information about this process on their website at (their address is listed at the bottom of the page):

http://www.stonyfield.com/SpecialOffers/Recycline.cfm

[greenteen]

LOL that's great!!! i wonder though... are the prepaid envelopes recycled paper? Hmmm....