Why Bamboo Toothbrushes Are Better Than Plastic Ones And Where You Can Get One
Millions of plastic toothbrushes are killing our animals by filling up landfills and oceans.
By Tamara Jayne
The average lifespan of a toothbrush is meant to be three months, so why are they built to last forever?
After all, millions of plastic toothbrushes fill up our landfills and oceans, killing our animals and releasing dangerous toxins into the air.
So, what if I told you there’s a way to reduce plastic waste by replacing it with an eco-friendly toothbrush made out of... bamboo?
I first discovered about bamboo toothbrushes when a friend posted about hers.
Now I know what you’re probably thinking, because it was what I was thinking too.
It’s probably expensive and hard-to-get. Anyway, they're so small so they don't contribute much to our landfills, right?
I was wrong. The average person uses around 300 toothbrushes in their lifetime. That is 4.7 billion plastic toothbrushes dumped in landfills and oceans every year.
Those are big numbers considering that we're required to replace our toothbrushes every three months.
When you do the math to the population of the world tossing toothbrushes out every few months, that number becomes a whole lot more destructive.
Animals are mistaking plastic for food like this plastic-filled stomach of a dead albatross.
Image via Jackson Loo/CNNMost of our plastic toothbrushes degrade in warm seawater in as little time as one year. The toxins from the plastic then enters into the bellies of our animals, like endangered sea turtles.
I don’t think of myself as one of those extreme ‘hippie’ environmentally-conscious people, although I do try to carry around my own recyclable bag and when possible, I try to avoid plastic straws.
I'd feel guilty for throwing out my old toothbrushes so, I'd reuse them to scrub tiny cracks and crevices in the bathroom. But, I never thought that there’d be an alternative solution.
Bamboo is one of the fastest growing trees and are able to degrade in the environment naturally
They also release 35% more oxygen into the air than an equivalent stand of trees.
In other words, they are a whole lot less damaging to our earth.
I'm glad to find that we can buy bamboo toothbrushes for relatively the same price as the normal plastic ones
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