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 »  Home  »  health  »  Recycle your toothbrush
Recycle your toothbrush
By Green Living Tips | Published  11/18/2006 | health , family , cleaning
Toothbrush recycling
Sounds a bit icky doesn't it? It's reported that over 25 000 tons of toothbrushes end up in landfill in America each year. It's something we don't think too much about - we use them, we throw them away. Here's a couple of ideas for minimizing waste:

a) Replaceable head toothbrushes. By weight, the head of a toothbrush is the lightest part, the bristles may wear out quickly, but the handle lasts a long time. There's brands of toothbrushes now available that have replaceable heads.

b) Keep the worn out brush for cleaning, they are great for scrubbing in between tiles, cleaning car componentry and for knocking off dust that's caked onto other items.

Do you have other toothbrush recycling tips? Please add them to this article for everyone's benefit! :)
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Michael Bloch
Green Living Tips.com
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Comments
  • Comment #1 (Posted by Johanna in NZ)

    The Preserve toothbrush is made from recycled plastic and the manufacturers provide recycling facility for the toothbrush once it needs to be replaced. You can read about it online here http://www.recycline.com/products/preserve.html
    Pretty cool!
    By the way I don't work for them and have never tried their toothbrushes. I haven't seen them in NZ yet.
     
  • Comment #2 (Posted by Michael - Green Livng Tips)

    Thanks for the heads up about the Preserve brush Johanna!
     
  • Comment #3 (Posted by Edie)

    old, worn-out toothbrushes are great for cleaning hairbrushes! Don't forget to save the hair for the birds. Also, using a permanent marker,you can make vegetable /flower id's for the garden. I have also used them to hold up plants in the house. Children can use them for splatter painting, or puppets.
     
  • Comment #4 (Posted by Michael - Green Living Tips)

    Great tips Edie, thanks! :)
     
  • Comment #5 (Posted by Michael)

    Clean your bike chain with your old toothbrush--it will look quite used up when you are done and you won't feel bad about throwing it away when you're done!
     
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