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.
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.
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.
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.