Making environmentally friendly toothbrushes FUN!

The Environmentally Friendly Toothbrush Graveyard!

Once upon a time I was quite (happily!) oblivious to the impact that plastics have on the planet...  Then my husband and I just happened to find ourselves watching a documentary on the Discovery Channel at my grandparents house about 4 years ago and were stunned to see the impact that our everyday 'throw away' mentality has on the environment.  The documentary was called something along the lines of Plastic Soup which was refering to an area in the ocean where the currents meet and keep all of our 'plastic junk' circulating, accumulating and essentially becoming part of the food chain!  If you'd like to be 'enlightened' you can check out this short news clip on YouTube here that talks about it.

So, after watching something like this (did you watch it?!) it can seem overwhelming as to where to start with becoming more 'planet friendly' in our everyday living but you can see how essential it is to start becoming more conscious of what you purchase and what you throw away!  When I came across environmental toothbrushes made from biodregradable materials it made sense to me as a simple change that we could make in our home at a comparable price to plastic toothbrushes (I was tempted to write 'normal' toothbrushes there instead of plastic but I'd prefer to call our environmental toothbrushes 'normal'  in the hopes that one day that is what they will be!  I think now after a year of using them in our home they are what my children will consider as 'normal'!).

When owner of Go Bamboo delivered our first order of Go Bamboo Toothbrushes last week he mentioned that the best way to get rid of old bamboo toothbrushes was to simply hammer them into the yard as they would break down within a few months because even tossing biodegradable items into the landfill will not offer them the opportunity to break down due to the conditions!  We also worked out that his twin daughters were friends with my eldest daughter at preschool, being small town Gisborne!  Anyway, I decided that hammering the toothbrushes into the lawn would be a fun way to dispose of our used toothbrushes and present another opportunity to teach our children how some things become the earth again where some things don't.

Step 1: Show them how it's done!  (Your baby is never too young to join in and learn too!)

Step 2: Set up 'The Toothbrush Graveyard' ready for young ones to hammer!

Step 3: Admire your kid's excitement as they learn that doing something the environmentally friendly way IS fun!

Step 4: Make sure they're hammered in good so hubby doesn't run over them with the lawn mower (which Go Bamboo owner Mick says wouldn't be a problem anyway because it would just turn to mulch!)  But seriously, you can hardly see where you've hammered them in when you're done!

I think next time it might be fun to mark the 'plots' and go back to check how they go at breaking down each fortnight or so!  That would give an great visual for the kids to learn from.  If you can't be bothered with hammering your used toothbrushes into the yard then just tossing them in with your compost is just as good.  Another cute aspect is since all of the toothbrushes look alike you can get your kids to decorate them or write their names on their toothbrushes themselves.  My 4 year old decided to write her own name and one of her favourite friend's names too, just because she can! (She's just starting to write words)

If you'd like to do some further reading on the subject, the Go Bamboo website have a page dedicated to 'Throwaway facts' with interesting snippets of info like '30 million toothbrushes are thrown into landfill in Australia each year.' and they have a few suggestions of what you can use your bamboo toothbrush for when you're finished with it if you prefer to reuse it rather than turn it back into the earth. More excitingly too is that Go Bamboo recently won the Waste Minimising category in the national Green Ribbon Awards which is a wonderful achievement!

Of course, if I've now persuaded you to want to make a tiny change in your household by changing your toothbrushes to the environmentally friendly kind you can purchase them from us here! 

No pressure 

xx Jacquie xx