The Problem
Recycling traditional toothbrushes is nearly impossible because each part is often made using a different kind of plastic: the handle, the bristles, and the rubber grips. This is a big problem for recycling facilities who need to separate each plastic type in order to process them.
Reality Check
When the founders of Boie USA learned that traditional toothbrushes you buy at the drugstore contribute to over 50 million pounds of landfill waste a year, we were shocked. We knew there had to be a better way.
Designing With Recycling In Mind
Step 1: no over-molding. When designing our products, we don’t combine different types of plastic. When two different materials do need to work together, like our toothbrush, we make the parts modular and easily separable by hand.
A Long-Term Approach
Creating something that’s recyclable isn’t enough. We want to make sure that all of our products last longer than their traditional alternatives. We do this by selecting materials that are durable and hold up over time. Our Body Scrubbers last up to six months, that’s six times longer than traditional plastic loofahs.
Closed-Loop System
When we first created our toothbrush it was a totally new concept and we wanted to make sure the recycling process was going smoothly. So, we did the leg work. We visited a recycling center in New York and found that our products were often problematic for facilities and not being processed. To make sure we stuck to our ethos, we created a system to accept products back from our customers and recycle them ourselves.
Made Here At Home
We manufacture and source all of our materials here in the USA. That helps keep our carbon footprint small and our community contribution big. This keeps transport-related CO2 emissions to a minimum and allows us to contribute to our community by using American manufacturers.