Business Eco
Packaging and the waste it leaves behind
AS I unwrap my new toothbrush
from its pack, it dawns on me just
how much waste these things
create. I am left with a plastic bubble,
cardboard packaging back and, of course,
the old plastic toothbrush I am about to
throw out.
I am sure we are supposed to change
toothbrushes every three months, and
with 60 million people in the UK, thatfs
240 million toothbrushes being binned
every year.
Imagine a mountain of all that plastic
and bristles, not to mention the
packaging from the new ones.
I wonder if the archaeologists of the
future who discover our landfill full of
toothbrushes will claim our teeth must
have been perfect because of all the
brushing we did.
We can recycle the cardboard
packaging, and I do tend to keep the old
toothbrush for little cleaning brushes,
but that is still a lot of plastic we are
leaving in the ground for future
generations.
Some manufacturers are trying to make
a difference, by using recycled material
for the handles, and offering a recycling
service.
The Preserve toothbrush is actually
made out of recycled yogurt pots and
when you are finished with it, you simply
post it back to them and it is ground down
to make plastic planking.
Another manufacturer, Radius, uses
recycled handles and is shortly
introducing corn starch plastic bubble
packs, which can be composted.
If you think about it, the only bit of
your toothbrush that actually needs to be
replaced is the brush, so what if you only
bought that bit?
Of course, if you use an electric
toothbrush you are already doing that,
replacing the brush and a small part of
the handle only.
But if you, like me, use a traditional
manual brush, it is about time we
changed our ways, and manufacturers are
starting to catch on.
HyG Ionic, Monte Bianco and Ekotech
are all brushes where you only replace the
head.
Terradent have gone even further
where you replace the bristle cartridge.
To find out more about environmentally
friendly toothbrushes, go to premier
waste.com/toothbrush/ or if you have any
hints and tips for recycling, email me at
recycling@premier waste.com
Ashley Cooper is the director of the disposal
division of Premier Waste Management
9:51am Tuesday 22nd April 2008
Print 
Email this
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
