[reaperducer]

It irks me that when a brush is retired, a gigantic chunk of plastic heads into the landfill.

I feel this way about toothbrushes. They've gotten very expensive and seem to be designed to last only a month or two.

I picked up a couple of eco-friendly ones in the supermarket recently. They're made of bamboo. They're also crap. Now I'm back on the plastic toothbrush treadmill.

[yonaguska]

I keep my old toothbrushes for cleaning various things so at least I can re-use them. Bicycle chains, baseboards, bathroom tiles, etc.

[reaperducer]

Yeah, I do that for cleaning grout. But the amount of grout to clean in my house is dwarfed by my used toothbrush supply. I wish they could at least be recycled.

[yourapostasy]

There are other uses for old toothbrushes [1], but I'm with you: I want the only parts that get tossed be the bristles themselves, ideally as a soil amendment (not as plastic nanoparticles that end up inside our food chain). It is very annoying plastics are used for only a tiny fraction of their lifecycles, and spend most of their lifecycle polluting our raw resources.

Interestingly, there is a company that rebristles antique brushes and also sells toothbrushes [2]. No idea if they rebristle toothbrushes.

Blizzident [3] sells an interesting product for $340, rebristles for $90, and you have to spend up to $200 to get a dental impression because the Blizzident is custom fit to each user [4]. Verified experience seems sparse on the ground [5], [6], and actual controlled study seems non-existent.

[1] https://experthometips.com/22-uses-for-used-toothbrush

[2] https://kentbrushes.com/bodycare/handmade-toothbrushes

[3] http://www.blizzident.com

[4] https://newatlas.com/blizzident-toothbrush/29264/

[5] https://www.reddit.com/r/Dentistry/comments/aco59q/product_r...

[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15JlKqoU4cI