A Tale of Two Toothbrushes

A few months back, we invested in bamboo toothbrushes as a way to reduce our plastic footprint. When the toothbrushes finally arrived,  I had just started using a new plastic toothbrush, a freebie from our dentist. My partner's toothbrush, however, was ready for a change and so she started using a bamboo toothbrush.

Several months later... we are ready to do a comparison. My partner's well-used bamboo toothbrush is on the left and my plastic one is on the right. As you can see... the plastic bristles of the bamboo one are bigger and they have a bit of a contour to them. But they've held up quite well to the wear and tear of twice daily brushings.

When you look full on... you can see that both toothbrushes are quite frayed out, my partner's more so than mine. This could be a brushing habit though. My partner tends to brush for a least two minutes twice a day while I generally only do 30 seconds twice a day. Soooo... the bamboo has more mileage, so to speak. Normally, I wouldn't change out my toothbrush until the three month point... which is what is recommended by dentists and manufacturers. As the bristles get more worn out, they are less effective and more likely to harbour bacteria. For me... this is the two month point in my toothbrush's life sooo... it'll be interesting to see if my bamboo toothbrush looks like my partner's one after two months of use.

The only other difference we noted was that bottom of the bamboo toothbrush had some staining since it sits in a tiny bit of water in the bottom of the toothbrush cups. The handle also looks a bit paler than before. But other than that, it's stood up quite well.

We have both now started using new bamboo toothbrushes... Time will tell how my bamboo toothbrush fares in the future. At least I have something to compare it to! And... at my next dentist appointment, I'm going to ask them point blank about recycling the plastic toothbrushes, dental floss containers, tooth paste tubes etc. I never did get a response to my email to them about the Terra Cycle boxes... And I want to ask them about the possibility of giving away bamboo toothbrushes instead of plastic ones. We'll see what response I get... stay tuned.