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Colgate Keep: An Aluminum-Handled Toothbrush with Replaceable Heads

It's an imperfect solution for the unrecyclability of toothbrushes

By Rain Noe - February 2, 2021

in Sustainable Design

I was impressed with how toothbrush manufacturers get the bristles into the heads. But I did not realize that those bristles, and the wire that binds them in place, is what leads them to be rejected by recycling centers. With no easy way to separate those components, toothbrushes are considered unrecyclable and sent to the landfill, even though the handle is entirely plastic.

What's the design fix for this? If the bristles were designed to not be permanently mounted, there's a chance they could come out in an end user's mouth, which could be disastrous.

Colgate-Palmolive's approach to the problem is one of compromise. Rather than redesign the bristles, they've accepted that not all of the toothbrush can easily be recycled, so they've minimized the unrecyclable part. Their new Keep toothbrush has an aluminum handle that you're meant to keep, as the name suggests, and use together with snap-on, disposable replacement heads made of plastic.

While this approach still has perfectly good plastic going into the trash, I can't see how else to reconcile the bristle problem.

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Jess Robinson

3 years ago

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There are these bamboo ones: https://www.livecoco.com/products/oral-b-electric-toothbrush-replacement-heads-with-charcoal-bristles which I assume could also have a static handle, if an electric one isn't wanted

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Ben Cullis

3 years ago

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Not all bristle technologies require metal stapling, Boucherie have developed a way of fusing the tufts into the head with heat and pressure (www.boucherie.com/en/news/press-release/ptt-a-revolution-in-anchorless-brushmaking). The real issue with toothbrushes is that the bristles are made from a different plastic, and so even without the metal staples, recycling isn't possible.

The responsible solution would be for manufactures to be partnering with recycling companies such as Terracycle and provide return schemes for non-standard recycling products that they put on the market (www.terracycle.com/fr-FR/brigades/signal#how-it-works and www.janette.lu/switch-la-brosse-a-dents-originale-et-eco-responsable-de-signal)

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