[steve_adams_86]

I get the same concern when I see plastics designed to be brushed against things like this. It’s a legitimate problem. I wonder if there are brushes made from materials which decompose, but are also at least as durable and/or affordable as plastic?

[xnx]

Many street sweeper brushes (especially gutter brushes/brooms) are made of steel wire.

[photochemsyn]

Bamboo.

https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20071024_china_clean_machin...

[steve_adams_86]

I feel silly asking now. I use bamboo brooms at home and they’re great.

Even if they don’t have quite the same efficacy or durability as plastic bristles, the ability to put them directly into municipal compost facilities (or urban composting bins) is a huge benefit.

But can it be manufactured consistently enough for engineered use cases like this where bristle length and bristle characteristics might need to be dialed in to get the desired performance?

Perhaps obsessing over that is part of the problem. If it works reasonably well and doesn’t pollute, in the long term (arguably the only term that really matters in this context) then a loss of efficiency is acceptable.