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Summer sale
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About Reswirl
Reswirl is a biodegradable plastic toothbrush that can be fully recycled and made into new brushes. This toothbrush is a sustainable alternative to the regular plastic toothbrushes that most of us have been buying for years. The difference? Reswirl brushes are made from biodegradable plastic that can be recycled, reused and remolded into new brushes. Best of all, Reswirl will take care of all this for you if you return your old brush to them once it’s time to replace it with a new one. Toothbrushes and other everyday essentials are items that we tend to forget about when thinking about sustainable swaps that we need to make in our lives. Unfortunately, overlooking the environmental damage caused by bathroom toiletries, such as toothbrushes, is an all too common practice that is destroying the earth and polluting our seas.
Studies show that unless we take drastic action, by the year 2050 there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish! This is largely due to the amount of plastic we use and simply throw away afterwards – and this includes toothbrushes for one. While nobody is discouraging you from replacing your toothbrush on a regular basis for hygiene purposes, consider how many toothbrushes the average household gets through alone on a yearly basis. Multiple this number by your country’s population and you can get an idea of just how many toothbrushes are thrown away, often ending up in the ocean and eventually washed up on beaches. Marine scientists recently discovered 373, 000 plastic toothbrushes washed up on the shores of the Cocos Keeling Islands, a tiny island where the population is just 600! This is why we need to take action and thanks to the Reswirl brush, changing over to a brush that’s better for the environment is quick, simple and doesn’t feel any different to your regular toothbrush.
Eco Toothbrushes
Currently, there are a variety of sustainable toothbrushes on the market, but non of them resemble the plastic toothbrushes with which we are most familiar. The problem with typical plastic toothbrushes is that they are not biodegradable. In fact, they are very harmful to our planet because they cause plastic pollution, which has now become out of control. There are eco alternatives available, including toothbrushes made from bamboo, but getting people to switch over to wooden toothbrushes hasn’t been as successful as hoped. Although many consumers love bamboo toothbrushes, some users have not responded to them very well, as they can take a bit of getting used to. Bamboo toothbrushes are a great ethical version if you can get used to them, but they can initially be a little rough and uncomfortable to use, which is why a high majority of consumers abandon them pretty quickly.
As with all responsibly-made products, they are only a viable sustainable option if you actually use them. If they are not used as many times as their design intended and are subsequently disposed of, it defies the point of being environmentally-friendly. Reswirl’s message is simple. If plastic is produced in a way that can be properly recycled and reused again then it can be considered a sustainable material. Furthermore, it’s crucial that ethical brands produce sustainable items that people will love and use. It defeats the object if a responsible brand releases a product that isn’t a reliable alternative to the everyday items we’re accustomed to, as this only resorts in consumers losing faith in sustainable goods on the market. Reswirl’s brush is unique in its own way because it replicates the same texture and weight of a standard toothbrush, but is also completely biodegradable.
How is the Reswirl Brush Made?
The Reswirl brush comes with coloured bristles so that you can differentiate toothbrushes from one another if you’re living in a multi-person household. Because let’s be honest, who wants to accidentally use somebody else's toothbrush?! Extensive care and research has gone into manufacturing this toothbrush. The creators at Reswirl have worked with scientists from the University of South Wales to ensure the biodegradability of their brush and in order to produce a product that supports what it claims to do. A lot of time and work has been invested into designing an eco toothbrush that boasts longevity and biodegrades under certain conditions only, and not while being stored in your bathroom.
The brush has that all familiar cylindrical design for comfortable brushing and in order to reach those hard to reach areas. It’s hollow in the middle to reduce material use and to allow faster biodegration. There are also nodules on the brush handle for better grip. Reswirl’s brush is made from a special type of plastic that doesn’t sit in landfills or in our oceans for hundreds of years, as it is fully biodegradable. This type of plastic is called PHA (Polyhyeroxyalkanoate), which is produced through microbial fermentation and processed into pellets that can be used in injection molding to guarantee thorough hygiene and quality! The bristles are recycled separately from the handles and although they biodegrade at a slower rate than the brush handles, they are also 100% bio-based!
Using A Reswirl Toothbrush
The team at Reswirl have very cleverly designed this innovative new brush with an equally well thought out system for their consumers too. This is how it works:
- Simply purchase your biodegradable plastic toothbrush from reswirl.eco
- Reswirl brushes typically last for about 3 months. Every 3 months a new Reswirl brush will be sent to you in sustainably made packaging – a box made from 100% recycled and recyclable cardboard.
- Send your old toothbrush back to Reswirl in the prepaid recyclable box that your new toothbrush arrives in.
- The brush you sent back will be broken down, ready to be made into a new brush. The bristles are separated from the brush handle and sent to be recycled separately. The brush handles are ground down and molded into new ones.
- The cycle starts again. See, these brushes can be recycled over and over with no inconvenience to you!
A Message from the Reswirl Creators
The team behind Reswirl is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter to launch the product. There’s an early bird offer for the first 1,200 backers who buy an annual subscription. Once the subscription starts you will automatically receive new brushes every 3 months.
Simon Porter, operations manager at Reswirl said; “You don’t have to dig too deep to unearth the shocking statistics around single-use plastic and how much we’re throwing away each year. And while we think we’re disposing of it correctly, much of it still ends up in landfill or escaping into the sea.
“It’s an epidemic that’s not going to change unless we tackle the situation head on. We’re not suggesting that Reswirl toothbrushes are going to change the world, but it gives consumers an eco-friendly option so that they too can start to make small changes that will make a massive impact on the environment.”
Follow Reswirl:
www.reswirl.eco
#AD – this article is sponsored by Reswirl but all opinions are my own.