Sustainable care for healthy teeth
We throw away four billion toothbrushes every year but we are all concerned about enamel erosion.
So it was inevitable that a new modular electric toothbrush, British-designed with sustainability and travel in mind, would sooner or later hit our bathrooms and washbags.
The London-based start-up SURI (for Sustainable Rituals) has produced (in China) a toothbrush with a body made from easily recyclable aluminium rather than plastic.
The plant-based cornflour plastic heads can be sent back for recycling in either the UK or the US or, in some cases, are industrially composted. And the electronic components inside are designed to be replaced if a repair is needed. The bristles are made from caster beans.
Co-founders Mark Rushmore and Gyve Safavi previously worked at Proctor & Gamble.
“Many people think toothbrushes are recyclable,” Safavi says. “Wrong.
“They’re made from multiple different types of materials − polypropylene, silicone and nylon bristles. The materials themselves could be recycled but at too much expense for the plants.” Rushmore adds: “Nearly every plastic toothbrush ever owned still exists in the world.
“Traditional toothbrushes usually have bristles made from nylon, which end up as landfill waste or marine waste for decades.”
SURI claims that their toothbrushes are 100 per cent recyclable. By using a pre-paid compostable return service, the start-up hopes to make the process of changing heads as easy as possible and discourage its customers from switching back to disposable brushes out of convenience.
Their research showed that a lot of people take a manual toothbrush when they travel. “We’re not perfect. We still have a long way to go. There are new things to look at. Like water-powered batteries. But it’s important to make our mouths as circular as possible. “Our brushes should last longer than people’s teeth.” SURI’s Safavi further explains that lithium-ion batteries can leach pollutants into the soil and groundwater.
“The materials in the battery could have value if recycled but they often aren’t. The battery is welded inside the plastic handle.
He says that, by redesigning the inner components, SURI’s designers were able to shrink the size of the handle to roughly a third of a traditional electric toothbrush. They also eliminated features consumers rarely use, like Bluetooth and a charging light, and these changes help the battery last a month or more on a single charge. By charging less often, the battery will last longer. “Sustainability is often an afterthought. We wanted to start a business, which was founded on design, performance and sustainability, on an even setting, rather than trying to retrofit something in afterwards,” Safavi concludes.
“Nearly every plastic toothbrush ever owned still exists in the world