A Toothbrush’s Afterlife

How many toothbrushes does it take to fill up a landfill? If every dental patient follows the advice of the American Dental Assn. to “Throw away your old toothbrush every 90 days,” then about 752 million toothbrushes get tossed every year.

And this has some people worrying.

“A toothbrush is polymer plastic with nylon bristles,” says Mario Muto, an industrial designer for Mottura personal-care products in San Francisco. “That means it’s going to be sticking around somewhere for quite a while.”

He’s finishing work on a natural toothbrush with a handle of light pine and vegetable-based bristles, to be packaged in a recyclable box with no plastic window.

In the toothbrush mainstream, Glenn Archibald of Oral B. Laboratories says environmental impact is an “important subject” that his company is addressing through product materials and package design.

At SmithKline Beecham, environmental concerns are “very high on our list, both in our products and packaging, I assure you,” says Sandor Katz. “But I’m not qualified to estimate how much landfill space toothbrushes use. Personally, I have trouble comparing one small toothbrush every three months to eight to 10 diapers a day.”