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Tom Dodds on transport matters »How often do you wear your toothbrush handle out?
Well if you are like most people, you’ve never had your toothbrush long enough to find out.
Changing your toothbrush 4 times a year, as recommended by dentists, means that on average most people will get through around 280 toothbrushes in their life time.
About 95% of the toothbrush is made up of a perfectly reusable handle and yet we throw this away – madness.
Its not just the waste that ends up in landfill but also the impact of the materials used and production process that has gone into each and every one of these 280 handles.
I used to keep our old toothbrushes for lovely household jobs such as cleaning the grout and polishing shoes, which always served as good procrastinating jobs when I had a deadline to work to as a student.
A couple of years ago, whilst visiting my mother, I came across a toothbrush called the Monte Bianco Clip. It simply is a toothbrush with a handle that you keep forever and a clip-off clip-on head which you replace when worn out, exactly in the same way as you would change the head on the razor.
There is also a new product out called the the Terradent where you only replace the bristles and because of how the bristles are affixed to the head, it has been rated as the most hygienic in independent European tests of many toothbrushes.
The Terradent is fairly new and refills are not so easily available unless you buy online.
In fact I did, until recently, have to rely on mummy dearest to send me new heads for our Monte Bianco Clips (which incidentally comes in children, adult and inter-dental versions) as there where no outlets in Newcastle where I could buy them.
I am however, happy to report, that after a chat with a very nice man at ethical store ‘Out of this World’ in Gosforth, they are stocking the Monte Bianco Clip handles and heads as of Saturday just gone.
I hope that after persuading them to stock them in the first place, lots of you will be popping in to get them.
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