How to dispose your bamboo toothbrush in 3 steps

July 2021
Using a biodegradable bamboo toothbrush means there is one less piece of plastic toothbrush floating around in the ocean or clogging up landfills. However, they still need to be disposed of or composted properly for optimal environmental friendliness.
While our bamboo toothbrush can last up to six month of use, dentists recommend replacing a toothbrush every three to four months; which is why our year’s supply pack contains four toothbrushes. Moreover, a new toothbrush does a much better job of taking care of your oral hygiene.
So when the time comes, how should you dispose of your bamboo toothbrush properly? This guide will cover just that in 3 easy steps.
Step 1: Reuse or upcycle your bamboo toothbrush
Reduce, Re-use, Recycle. Once your toothbrush has served its principal purpose of cleaning your teeth, there are lots of ways you can squeeze a bit more life and use out of it. Clean, preferably by boiling then mark it in some way so you know it is not to be used on teeth.

Some ideas on how to reuse it could be:
  • Clean your bathroom with it.
  • Maintain electrical items.
  • Scrub sports equipment such as dirty sports shoes.
  • Marking your herb garden, writing the name in the handle and sticking it in the soil.
Step 2: Remove the bristles
They are the one part of a bamboo toothbrush that is not biodegradable; which is less than 1% of the entire toothbrush.
This means you have to remove the bristles and dispose of them separately from the toothbrush handle. You can either pull them out with pliers (the favoured method) or snap the whole toothbrush head off.
The bristles can then go into your plastic recycling, but as they are so small and easily lost, we recommend first putting them inside another plastic item you are recycling.
Step 3: Compost of the bamboo handle
The handle of your toothbrush is 100% biodegradable. To make sure it decomposes as quickly as possible we recommend putting it in your bio-waste bin to be disposed of in an industrial composter, where it will break down in a few weeks.
You can also put it in a home composter if you have one. Even if you just throw it into your normal rubbish and the toothbrush ends up in landfill, it will still biodegrade in a few years.
Depending on the type of composting, the bamboo handle can take from 4 months to 3 years to compost.
But we can guarantee you that it will get back to earth entirely.
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