Taking care of our oral hygiene is a smart investment. Most of us want to be able to enjoy our favorite food without any problem in our old times. Aside from that, our oral hygiene is important, because everything comes into our body mainly from our mouth.
But try to take a look at your oral care, you can see it yourself that most of the things in your bathroom are made of or packed in plastic. Apparently, our oral care is not that eco-friendly, and it has been this way since we were kids.
But worry not, because nowadays eco-friendly oral hygiene equipment is on the rise. Here in this article we will show you some examples of eco-friendly oral hygiene equipment that you can already purchase in stores around you.
Oral Hygiene Waste
Oral hygiene products are overlooked in most news about plastic pollution, but can you ever recall when was the last time you used non-plastic toothbrush? And there is an outdated reason behind it. Most toothbrush producers use plastic because it is cheap and last longer than any other materials.
In fact, billions of oral hygiene products waste such as used toothbrush and floss, toothpaste container, and mouthwash bottles are dumped into landfills every year. In estimation, there are 3.7 to 4.3 billion used toothbrushes are thrown away each year.
There are two main sources of oral hygiene products waste, which are normal households and hotels. If we continue using plastic oral hygiene products, we can drown inside ocean of toothbrushes since each of them last up to 1000 year to decompose.
However, nowadays we have found the way to make eco-friendlier materials cheaper and for specific products can also last longer. But not so many of us already use it or even realize that such kind of product exist.
That’s why, we feel it important to inform all of you about these eco-friendly oral hygiene products. Our zero waste and plastic free movements should also include our oral hygiene, isn’t it? If you agree with that, here are some products you should try:
Mother Of Oral Hygiene: Toothbrush
Talking about cleaning our mouth, there must be one thing that comes to our minds first which is toothbrush. You can check out yourself to find out what is your toothbrush made of, and most likely it is made of plastic in every single of its part.
But as we mentioned above, there is an eco-friendlier version of toothbrush made from bamboo. Bamboo toothbrush is a great alternative to its plastic counterpart. Not only because it is as cheap as plastic, but it can also last almost as long as plastic.
Moreover, bamboo toothbrush is better because it is biodegradable. There are so many examples to mention one by one, thus we will only mention three products as mentioned in The Strategist which are WooBamboo, Hello, and Isshah.
All of those three have their own extras, such as Hello with its activated charcoal addition, Isshah that has bad-breath-fighting feature, and WooBamboo with its zero-waste packaging. And don’t you know that each of them doesn’t cost you more than $4?
Oh, and most of those products mentioned above also have bamboo toothpick and dental floss variants too. Bamboo indeed seems suitable for oral hygiene products because it grows so fast and naturally degradable.
Plastic-Free Toothpaste
Secondly, after talking about toothbrush, this is a must that we also talk about its long-life partner, toothpaste. This is the part where we should be more serious. Most toothpaste are not only coming in plastic packages, but also made of chemicals.
Don’t you know that it is so easy to make toothpaste on our own? What you need to do is just mixing baking soda, xylitol, bentonite clay, coconut oil, and peppermint oil into a glass jar, and you get your own eco-friendly toothpaste.
But if you want to have different sensation, you can also purchase Georganics powdered toothpaste and Uncle Harry’s all-natural toothpaste that comes in glass jar. Both of their products do not include any plastic packaging, and good for your teeth.
Toothpaste tablets can also be another option for you if you want to brush your teeth without any commitment with plastic waste. Huppy Tooth offers all-natural alternative that you have to chew a bit before brushing.
One thing that you should notice is before switching into powdered toothpaste and tablets is, they are not as convenient as conventional toothpaste to use at first. Each of those products might offer different sensation for you and you have to get used to that new sensation at first.
Mouthwash Tablet
After brushing our teeth, what’s the thing we used to do to make our breath fresh and kill remaining germs? Yes, we use mouthwash to do that, and talking about eco-friendly oral hygiene we must also mention eco-friendly mouthwash.
Just like Huppy Tooth’s toothpaste, the eco-friendly version of mouthwash comes in tablets. Not only that, the products usually also come with glass jar without any plastic packaging included. However, unlike the toothpaste we mentioned above, mouthwash tablet needs to be diluted first.
There are two products worth mentioning when talking about mouthwash tablet, which are Georganics Spearmint and By Humankind mouthwash. Each one of them has its own special identity that you might want to consider.
Gerorganics Spearmint is made with entirely natural ingredients and the taste you get from it is from organic peppermint oil. And this is also fluoride free. It comes in beautiful tiny glass jar that you can use for storing small things after it is emptied out.
While By Humankind mouthwash comes with refillable container and small glass cup for dissolving the mouthwash. This product is suitable for travelling uses because the container is durable enough to survive your adventurous sense. Both of those products cost less than $10!
As you can see, all of those products are not only cheap but also innovative. And most importantly, they exist! All of them can be purchased online and most of them will ship worldwide. Would you mind to convert into eco-friendly oral hygiene products starting from now?
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