bamboo toothbrushes with cardboard packaging

Show off those gleaming pearly whites with a dazzling smile, you’ve got something to be happy about, because no longer will your dental care give the planet a filling made up of plastic waste!

Use your wisdom tooth and make the right choice to switch your toothbrush from plastic to bamboo and keep that disposable plastic out of landfills.

Choose from soft, medium and firm bristle options. Sold individually so you can mix and match bristle firmness for the preference of each mouth in your household, or in multipacks of four of the same type.

(FYI: The bristles are still plastic, but there isn’t much alternative if you want a conventional style toothbrush. By swapping out the handle and replacing it with bamboo, you eliminate 90% of the plastic used to make a toothbrush, which is a step forward. ABP’s new supplier uses 63% plant-based bristles combined with nylon, rather than just nylon. Turn that frown upside down and cheer, hurrah for progress! 😊)

Bamboo Toothbrush

From £3.99

Plastic toothbrushes. If we listen to our dentists, we should replace them at least every three months. That means we all chuck 4 plastic toothbrushes into a landfill each year because they aren’t recycled. That is 40 toothbrushes a decade. Say the average age we live to in the UK is 80-something. That’s around 320 plastic toothbrushes each, and then times that by 66 million. Feeling queasy yet, and not just because maths makes your head hurt? Those plastic toothbrushes aren’t going anywhere. They don’t sit and rot, they just sit. That is an insane amount of waste, I am sure we can all agree. Why should our dental health come at the expense of the planet?
Plastic toothbrushes could be eradicated. We can cut down the 320-odd plastic toothbrushes we will each use in our lifetimes by using bamboo toothbrushes instead. Bamboo is sustainable because it is so fast-growing, and it biodegrades. If it is a choice between a wooden handle and adding to the ever-growing pile of plastic toothbrushes in landfills, then I know what I’m choosing. They do the same thing, the bristles are the same (your teeth will be as clean as ever, don’t worry), but they massively cut down on rubbish plastic waste. How are they not better??
The average price of plastic toothbrushes… everyone knows you can get a pack of 4 for like a pound. If you get a fancy branded one, it can cost up to £4, but probably less. So yes. Bamboo toothbrushes are more expensive, in monetary terms alone. When you factor in the cost to the environment and the fact that plastic is made using oil, a non-renewable resource, the real cost of a plastic toothbrush becomes more apparent. If you are planning on bequeathing your plastic toothbrushes to your grandkids, who then bequeath them to their grandkids, then you’ve eventually got your money’s worth, environmentally speaking. That could then be equivalent to one bamboo toothbrush I guess.

It is not worth the convenience to buy plastic toothbrushes. I plan on outliving my toothbrushes, not the other way around.
What are they made from?

Vegan product.

Handle: Bamboo with resin paint, which is plant-based.

Bristles: Nylon… Yes, it is plastic, but there are not a lot of alternatives right now to plastic bristles unless you want to use boar bristles. Most people I have asked have told me that they don’t want to stick pig hair in their mouth thanks, so goddamn plastic bristles it is. I can’t decide if I would use a boar hair toothbrush, but I am entertained by the thought that there is someone whose job it is to shave pigs.

I will offer alternatives in the future, but bamboo toothbrushes seem to have captured the UK’s imagination in the way boar bristle toothbrushes or miswak sticks have failed to. (Miswak is nature's toothbrush, basically a twig from specific types of trees. A substantial population of the world still use these or similar, it is just the Western world which is obsessed with sticking plastic in our mouths. If anyone can point me in the direction of Miswak which isn’t vacuum packed in plastic, I would be grateful for your assistance, as I would love to have them on here!)

ABP’s new supplier, f.e.t.e, makes its bristles with 63% plant-based plastic, with the rest being nylon, which is an improvement on our previous supplier, whose bristles were fully nylon. These bristles can be recycled anywhere that recycles nylon. (Nylon is not a widely recycled material, so if you know of anywhere offering this that is not linked to sending the bristles back to a particular brand, let me know, I’d be interested!) Once the bristles have been removed, the rest of the toothbrush is compostable.

They are attached to the handle using pressure, no glue involved.

Packaging: 100% recycled cardboard.

Where do they come from?

The bamboo comes from the Anji region in China.

Are they sustainable?

Bamboo is a fast-growing grass that is generally seen as one of the most sustainable plants due to the speed at which it grows. The bamboo f.e.t.e uses is ‘Mao’(Moso) bamboo.

How about ethical?

f.e.t.e are a new supplier which I am trying out to replace my previous supplier, Zero Waste Club. Zero Waste Club were very transparent, and provided lots of info on where, how and who manufactured their products. ZWC sold their company, and the new owners don’t appear to be continuing the ZWC range of bamboo toothbrushes.

There isn’t much public info on f.e.t.e’s supply chain, so I will be endeavouring to find out more, and I’ll move on to a new supplier if need be.

Extra good stuff:

f.e.t.e support “The Lawrence Anthony Earth Organisation”, an ecological charity working towards a healthier and cleaner world.

Conclusion:

Bare that toothy grin of yours because you are fighting plaque, I mean back, against plastic pollution!