Brushing your teeth daily is essential, but by doing so, we produce a lot of plastic waste. That’s why I want to answer the question: Can you recycle toothbrush heads?
Here at EcoHomeLife we are on a mission to live a more sustainable life and help others to do the same by sharing information and our experiences.
Oral hygiene is an important area, because we all know that we have to take care of our teeth and gums in order to have a healthy and beautiful smile.
In our family, we use electric toothbrushes, because they are meant to clean your teeth better. But it also means that we throw away a lot of electric toothbrush heads that end up in landfill.
That’s why, in this article, I will answer the question: Can you recycle toothbrush heads?
Recyclable Yay Or Nay?
Let’s get straight into it and look at the question: Can you recycle toothbrush heads? And the short answer is yes.
However, the recycling process is complicated, because toothbrush heads are made of different types of plastic fused together.
That means that most, if not all, UK councils won’t accept them as part of their recycling schemes. So you can’t put them in your recycle bin at home.
But there are recycling specialists, such as TerraCycle, that will recycle toothbrush heads.
There is a small number of TerryCycle recycling programmes in the UK, which accept oral care products, such as toothbrush heads, from any brand.
One is sponsored by Colgate and the other by Philips. You collect all your dental care products and drop them off at one of the collection points.
At the collection point, all the plastic dental products will be boxed up and sent to TerraCycle, who will recycle the plastic items correctly, so they can be reused to make other items.
Sounds good, right? The problem is that there are not that many collection points. We live in a rural area of the UK and don’t have any collection point for either of the two schemes close to us.
If we have to make a one-hour trip by car to a place we normally never go, it defeats the object of being more environmentally friendly.
There is another TerraCycle programme called “Zero Waste Box”. You order the box, put your oral care products in and use the return label you got when you ordered the box to send it to TerraCycle.
While it’s much more convenient, one box costs over £100, which is not affordable for many people.
So although these programmes are all great, they are either expensive or inconvenient.
And if we want people to recycle as many plastic products as possible, we have to make it cheap (even better free), easy and convenient.
Return Schemes
So while the answer to the question “Can you recycle toothbrush heads?” is technically yes, it can be rather difficult.
Alternatively, you can buy electric toothbrush heads from companies that have a return scheme.
This means you send them back to them once you have finished with them, and they will then recycle the products correctly.
It’s an easy and convenient way to recycle your toothbrush heads. Generally, these return schemes only cover their own products, so you can’t throw in plastic items you bought elsewhere.
Although returning your toothbrush heads is advertised as free, it is likely included in the purchase price.
However, if it is so easy to recycle your toothbrush heads, then a slightly higher price is worth it, in my opinion.
There are several companies that offer such return schemes for their own products, which means the answer to the question can you recycle toothbrush heads is not only yes, but yes easily.
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Brushd
One company that offers to recycle their toothbrush heads is Brushd.
They offer heads that are compatible with the two most widely used electric toothbrush brands: Oral-b and Philips Sonicare. With your order you receive a pre-paid return envelope, which you can use to send back your toothbrush heads once you have finished with them.
All you need to do is drop the envelope off at the Post Office or into a postbox.
Brushd will then send off all their used toothbrush heads to the TerraCycle recycling centre to recycle them.
While you could just use TerraCycle yourself for free, as we have discussed earlier, the coverage of drop-off points is not that good, depending on where in the UK you live.
So using Brushd‘s return scheme is a great alternative, if you don’t live close to a TerraCycle drop-off point.
Georganics
Georganics are a UK-based company that also offers a return scheme for their toothbrush heads for their electric and manual toothbrushes.
You have to buy their electric toothbrush, as their heads are not compatible with any other brands.
To send back the heads, you just need to put at least five (to make it worthwhile) into an envelope and address it to “Free-post Georganics” and then drop it off at a Post Office or postbox.
Georganics will then also send these to TerraCycle to get recycled in one of their centres.
LiveCoco
Another UK-based brand that will recycle their toothbrush heads if you send them back after use is LiveCoco.
Their toothbrush heads are compatible with several electric tooth brush brands as long as they have a round toothbrush head: Oral-b, Braun, Tesco, Aldi, Asda and Superdrug.
While they offer to recycle their brush heads for you, you have to pay for postage and packaging. They have a return address on their website, to which you can send the heads. They will then recycle them.
Unless you buy their 12-pack, then you will receive a free recycling return envelope with your order.
Like other brands, LiveCoco only accept their own heads for recycling. According to their website, this is because they know what’s in their products so can recycle them accordingly, which is not the case for other brands.
So there are brands out there that will make it easy for you to recycle your toothbrush heads, which is brilliant.
But just because the answer to the question can you recycle toothbrush heads is yes, doesn’t mean there aren’t eco-friendly alternatives out there.
Our Top-Rated Sustainable Toothbrush Heads:
| Toothbrush Heads | Compatability | Value For Money | Sustainability | My Rating | Full Review | Official Website |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Oral-B/Braun | Excellent | Outstanding | 4.78 | Read Review | Visit Website |
 | Philips Sonicare | Excellent | Outstanding | 4.78 | Read Review | Visit Website |
 | SURI | Excellent | Outstanding | 4.78 | Read Review | Visit Website |
Eco-Friendly Toothbrush Heads
While that’s great news that you can recycle toothbrush heads and other oral care products via recycling or return schemes, wouldn’t it be better to buy eco-friendly toothbrush heads?
Given that the recycling process for toothbrushes is so complicated, surely the way forward is to use plastic-free versions.
That’s what I thought, so I did some research to find plastic-free toothbrush heads that will be good for the environment.
There are a number of brands that offer bamboo toothbrush heads, which are more eco-friendly, as they don’t contain as much plastic.
The plastic they still do contain comes in the form of nylon bristles. This is because using plastic bristles is currently the best solution.
The only natural alternatives, animal hair or plant fibre, are not ideal for your oral health.
Boar hair is the most common material used for non-plastic bristles. But because they come from animals they are not vegan, which means many people wouldn’t want to use them.
They also tend to have more bacteria on them than nylon bristles, which is because boar hair is hollow, so it gives bacteria a place to thrive.
Boar hair bristles can also be rougher on your gums, as they might not be as rounded as nylon ones.
The plant alternative includes sisal and jute fibres. However, these would not be suitable as sisal fibres would be too hard for brushing your teeth and jute fibres would be too soft.
So nylon bristles are the only viable option at the moment. But not all nylon is equal.
Most plastics are derived from fossil fuels. But some companies are using bristles that are made from plant-derived nylon, for example from caster oil.
While these bristles are still made of plastic, which will take a long time to break down, it is more eco-friendly because no fossil fuels are used.
As such, it’s the most eco-friendly material that can be used for toothbrush bristles at the moment.
When it comes to the head itself, bamboo is the wood of choice for eco-friendly toothbrush heads for most brands.
And as long as the bamboo is sustainably sourced, it is a great environmentally friendly material that works perfectly for dental care products.
Its antibacterial properties make it ideal to be used in your mouth. And because it’s wood, it is compostable and can just be put in the garden waste bin or on your compost heap once you are done with it.
You just have to make sure you remove the bristles, which can be recycled with TerraCycle.
While there aren’t many brands out there yet who make these eco-friendly toothbrush heads, there are some.
Truthbrush
This UK-based company wants to help people live a more sustainable life while keeping our mouths healthy.
The Truthbrush bamboo toothbrush heads are made from Moso bamboo, which grows up to a meter a day, so is very sustainable and compostable.
Their bristles are made from caster oil for the medium bristles, and the soft bristles are made from 62% caster oil and 38% nylon.
So these need to be removed before you can recycle the bamboo head.
Currently, the Truthbrush toothbrush heads are only compatible with Philips Sonicare, which is a shame.
Booheads
Another UK-based company is booheads, which offers eco-friendly electric toothbrush heads.
Their heads are also made of bamboo, so they are compostable. While they do not explicitly say what their bristles are made of, they state that their toothbrush heads are made of bamboo and bioplastics.
In their list of materials used, they mention caster oil, so I assume that their bristles are made from bioplastic derived from caster oil.
This means they do not use any fossil fuels to manufacture their heads, which is great, but their bristles are still made of nylon.
At the moment, booheads only have toothbrush heads that work with the Philips Sonicare electric toothbrush, but you can register your interest for a head that is compatible with an Oral-b one, so they might start making these soon too.
Agood Company
This company is based in Sweden, and offers eco-friendly electric toothbrush heads. They offer heads that work with Oral-b toothbrushes and ones that are compatible with Philips.
Agood Company use sustainably grown bamboo for their heads, which means it can be composted or disposed of in the garden waste bin.
However, they do use nylon bristles, which were made from fossil fuels.
While this is not as eco-friendly as other brands, Agood Company are still reducing the amount of plastic that is used, which is a good thing.
This article has shown that it is possible to make dental care more sustainable. You have different options, which means you can choose the one that is most convenient for you.
So now that you know the answer to the question: Can you recycle toothbrush heads? You can act to live a more sustainable life for yourself and our planet.
Our Top-Rated Sustainable Toothbrush Heads:
| Toothbrush Heads | Compatability | Value For Money | Sustainability | My Rating | Full Review | Official Website |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oral-B/Braun | Excellent | Outstanding | 4.78 | Read Review | Visit Website |
| Philips Sonicare | Excellent | Outstanding | 4.78 | Read Review | Visit Website |
| SURI | Excellent | Outstanding | 4.78 | Read Review | Visit Website |
