Colgate: Dental hygiene and plastic waste don't have to go hand-in-hand!

We're all taught at a young age that oral hygiene is an important part a healthy lifestyle. But does that healthy habit have to come at the expense of our planet?
                                                     

Colgate-Palmolive is one of the world's biggest producers of oral hygiene products. Every year, Colgate sells billions of plastic products like toothbrushes, floss picks, and tubes of toothpaste. All of these products were designed to keep your teeth clean - and to end their life in a dump. Colgate and dentists say you should swap out your toothbrush every three months. If everyone in the U.S. follows those instructions, about 1.2 billion - yes, that's billion with a "B" - plastic toothbrushes are going to end up in dumps by the end of the year. (Let's not even get started on electronic toothbrushes, packed full of rare earth metals and hard to recycle components!)  

We know the dental industry has the capability to innovate; in 2012 the US Patent Office issued 138 patents that included the word "toothbrush". 138! Almost all of these innovations were in the area of convenience (anyone need a toothbrush that contains toothpaste pellets that are housed in the brush's handle and then automatically pushed into the bristles of your brush? It's been invented!). Colgate was founded in 1806, has 13,400 employees and is valued at $59 billion. We think it's high time that Colgate and the dental community take put their dollars, energy, and brain power it into coming up with creative solutions to reduce the amount of waste their industry produces.

Please take a moment to tell Colgate-Palmolive that it's time they changed their wasteful ways. Colgate needs to hear that their customers want clean teeth AND a clean environment - not one or the other. Join us today in rewriting the story by telling Colgate to brush up their act.