A new bamboo toothbrush could replace your plastic version and save the planet from billions of pounds of plastic waste every year.
Named The Giving Brush, this vegan and fully biodegradable toothbrush is made from naturally grown bamboo, with no added chemicals or pesticides. It is coated with natural wax to keep it dry. When it has come to the end of its life, it can be tossed into the compost pile to break down. The bristles are made from BPA-free nylon 6 and designed for recycling.
The overwhelming majority of people still grab a plastic toothbrush off the shelf without giving any thought to its environmental footprint. Due to this, an estimated 850-million to one-billion toothbrushes are discarded every year in the United States alone, creating more than 50-million pounds of waste – which will either end up in a landfill or find its way into the ocean.
It’s not only the disposal of plastic toothbrushes that poses an environmental threat; 50% of the footprint of a plastic toothbrush occurs during the manufacturing process. With more than 4.7 billion plastic toothbrushes manufactured every year, the Giving Brush team say that the average consumer will use 300 toothbrushes in a lifetime, resulting in 12-pounds of discard plastic toothbrushes. Their figures state that around 80-billion-pounds of plastic toothbrushes will be discarded in our lifetime.
The cofounder of the Giving Brush was inspired while surfing in California. He came across a large pile of floating plastic debris, including many toothbrushes. When researching the issue, he discovered that plastic toothbrushes have a huge impact – with billions of them used and disposed of every year. The Giving Brush’s goal is to convert at least ¼ of US residents away from plastic toothbrushes.
Bamboo is a prolific grower, and is, in fact, the fastest growing plant on the planet; in the right conditions, it can grow an amazing four feet a day. It’s so hardy that it can grow virtually anywhere, and provides a fantastic sustainable source for manufacturing plastic alternatives such as toothbrushes, straws and more.
Worldwide, we are only just beginning to open our eyes to the epic scale of our plastic addiction and its tragic effects on marine life. It only takes one small, simple action to begin reducing this problem, one toothbrush at a time.
What’s New…
Yes to bamboo! Bamboo toothbrushes already exist (see my earlier comments), and they are wonderful!
Wonderful and will make a big difference.
BPA results from chemicals which plastics dont even need. There are over 2,000 alternatives to them. They were removed at one stage due to campaigning, but shortly afterwards were used again. BPA is much like the female hormone oestrogen, so it feminises males, resulting in low fertility in humans and similar damage to many species throughout the ecosystem. It also makes human females sexually develop too early, resulting in childhood pregnancies in cases of sexual abuse. It also causes animals to think the plastic is living tissue, so they eat it and then die from having a stomachful of plastic and no nutrients with which to deal with it. BPA is a deliberately manufactured problem caused by psychopaths who want less life, because life is a problem for them. Psychopaths only feel anger and fear, so dominance or desolation are all they want. Psychopaths have the most dangerous mental illness, but appear normal. We need to see them as the problem they are and to lock them all up for life, if we are to save this world.
this needs to be done world wide.
Sounds great – We must stop using so much disposable plastic. I hope they come with bristles without dye also. I hate those toothbrushes that have dye in them to tell you when to replace your toothbrush.
Great, but don’t make it too expensive
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Sounds like a good change toothbrushwise……………
While I agree that something must be done about plastic I forsee people getting splinters jn their mouths from bamboo toothbrushes. Also wood rots.
Leanne, I’ve been using an organically grown bamboo toothbrush for almost a year now (SenzaBamboo, purchased on Vitacost.com), and I assure you I do not have splinters in my mouth nor is it rotting. Unlike regular wood, bamboo is naturally antibacterial. You should give one a try…you’ll fall in love!
A better option might be for government to give every family a Waterpik. These wonderful tools would do wonders for childrens teeth, save on toothpaste, which is largely a waste of money, and greatly reduce reliance on toothbrushes