Low Impact

Two different Radius toothbrushes

There’s hundreds of choices we make each day that affect the impact we have on the environment. Some of them are big, and obvious – like when we’re choosing a new car. Some of the decisions are much smaller and more humdrum.

Like buying a new toothbrush! Radius Toothbrushes sent me an email a little while back and asked if they could send me a sample of their toothbrushes. I don’t often get emails from toothbrush manufacturers, so this was a little unexpected! (In fact, I don’t usually get emails from manufacturers full-stop!).

But there is an environmental aspect to toothbrushes. Lets look at the numbers. Some 50 million pounds of toothbrushes go into American landfills each year. I couldn’t find figures for other countries, but you can do some estimates. For instance, if we assume that 90% of Australians are paying some attention to their teeth and buy themselves a new toothbrush every 4 months, that’s 54 million toothbrushes (or should that be teethbrushes?) purchased each year. That’s a lot of toothbrush.

I’ve checked my local supermarket, and without exception, all the toothbrushes I could find are made of plastic (which is typically derived from crude oil), wrapped in cardboard and plastic, and made in China.

There’s plenty of non-renewable materials there, not to mention a lot of transport required. And sure, one toothbrush is a pretty innocuous purchase, but across Australia, there’s of the order of 50 million of these things being bought each year.

Radius sent me 2 different models of toothbrush. The “Original” model and the “Source” model (see the pictures). I have to admit to being a bit blind to design – my wife despairs of my choices in fashion, furniture – most things in fact! So, I’ll refrain from commenting on the look of these things – you can make your own mind up. But what struck me straight away was what they were made of.

The 'Original' model toothbrush

The Original is made of cellulose – the tough material inside plant matter which so many scientists are currently working on converting to ethanol. That’s what the packaging says – to a layperson like me, it looks like plastic. It feels like plastic. I’m keen to look further into this – if this is an example of something that can be made from a renewably-sourced plastic, what else could we be making in this way?

The promotional blurb says the Source toothbrush comes in a flax version and a recycled wood fibre version. I was sent the Source toothbrush with its handle made from recycled wood fibre. This is actually a mix of recycled wood fibre, and recycled plastic – I’m guessing that a wet environment like a bathroom wouldn’t lend itself to a pure wood version, or maybe it has more to do with forming the handle into the right shape.

The Source toothbrush has a detachable head – the idea being that when the bristles wear out, rather than throw away the whole unit, you can just replace the head of the toothbrush to minimise the waste that’s produced. After all, why throw away a perfectly good handle that could conceivably last for years?

The packaging also gets a green tick – while its wrapped in plastic, like all the toothbrushes at my local supermarket, the plastic is made up of 50% recycled bottles. Its strange to think that your soft drink of today is the toothbrush packaging of tomorrow!

The 'Source' model toothbrush

The final environmental factor to consider is transport – just how far has that toothbrush had to travel to get to you? You’ve heard of food miles, so this is dental hygiene miles! All the toothbrushes in my local store are made in China, so one way or the other it looks like my toothbrush is going to require a fair share of oil to make its way to my bathroom. The Radius toothbrushes are manufactured in the USA. So, for Australians, the transport factor isn’t a win, but probably not too much of a loss over the standard Chinese-made toothbrush. I’m not sure what the situation is in the US, but I’d assume that many of the “standard” toothbrushes are also shipped over from China. A locally made toothbrush like the Radius is going to require less petroleum to ship it to your store and so will have a lower environmental impact. Its another factor to consider.

So, the Radius toothbrushes tick a lot of green boxes, which is great stuff. But how do they go at actually cleaning teeth? (Although if you’re really into the environment, that might seem like a secondary thing, I know!). Well, my wife has been using the Original model, and I’ve been using the Source model. My wife is happy with the toothbrush, but finds it pretty different from what she’s used to. As you might be able to tell from the photo, the head of the Original brush is almost double the size of a “standard” toothbrush. So, she says it’s comfortable, and does a good job, but the sensation of a such a large brush is going to take a little while to get used to.

I’m a big fan of my “Source” toothbrush. The head is bigger than my old toothbrush, but not overly so. Its comfortable to hold, and the bristles are really soft. Big thumbs up from me.

(It’s weird – I never thought when I started writing Low Impact articles that I’d end up giving my review of a toothbrush! )

So there you have it. Even a decision as simple as buying a new toothbrush can have environmental considerations! The Radius toothbrushes have some solid green credentials – far in excess of the standard toothbrushes I find in the usual supermarket shelves – which means they’re well worth a look. Their website (www.radiustoothbrush.com) has some more info, as well as a store locator. And while we’re talking dental hygiene, you might want to check out this page from About.com – it talks about about other environmental aspects of toothbrushes you may not have considered, like recycling.

Categories: environment, green, reduce

Tags: packaging, renewable, toothbrush