Creative Uses for Toothbrushes

So you’re sick of having to throw away old toothbrushes. You know they’re just going into the landfill and you’re just buying a new one. There has to be some way you can recycle or reuse those old toothbrushes. Well, there are some ways you can still use those old toothbrushes until they just snap in two from pure old age.

(And that picture? Me with my toothbrush. Which I occasionally use to dust off my laptop keyboard. LOL just kidding.)

Use Your Old Toothbrushes

• Clean those hard to reach places. Some places sort of get gross after a while because they aren’t easy to reach with normal cleaning supplies. No problem; just grab your old toothbrush and use it to reach those stubborn corners.
• Remove mascara. Did you lose the little brush you normally use to remove mascara? Rather than go out and buy a whole new mascara kit, why not just use that old toothbrush?
• Save an expensive engineering project. You wouldn’t believe it, but that humble toothbrush can be exactly the tool you need to save that project your organization currently hinges its future on. That’s what International Space Station crew members Akihiko Hoshide and Sunita Williams did when they needed to make an EVA to repair the station’s power system and couldn’t get two bolts to tighten into place. They attached an old toothbrush to a pole and used it to do some cleaning around the errant power module. It worked and Astronaut Jack Fischer called the results “a little slice of awesome pie.” (No worries in other sanitation areas. They have spare toothbrushes.) That’s not too shabby for a humble toothbrush, eh?
• An art project. Toothbrushes can have a variety of uses in the art department. You can use it to get a nice splatter effect with that watercolor art, use it as a centerpiece for a craft project or turn it into a piece of jewelry. Seriously!
• Use it for cooking. Did you lose that brush you usually use for spreading butter on top of baked goods? An old toothbrush can do the same job if you give it a thorough cleaning beforehand.

Can Toothbrushes Just Be Recycled?

It can be hard to find recycling places that will take old toothbrushes and most people don’t think about it. That means they just throw their old toothbrushes away. That means 50 million pounds of old toothbrushes going to landfills every year. Yikes! Luckily, there are companies like Preserve Products, which makes toothbrushes out of recycled yogurt cups and makes it easy to mail your old toothbrush back to be recycled. There are also toothbrushes with replaceable heads. You keep the handle and just snap on a new head when the old ones wear out. So, if you’d rather not contribute to the waste every few months, you do have options.

Toothbrushes on eBay