The number of “disposable” items actually consumed today is staggering: 60,000 plastic bags used in the US every 5 seconds, 2 million plastic bottles every 5 minutes, 1 million plastic cups handed out on airline flights every 6 hours, 1.14 million paper bags and 106,000 aluminum cans used every hour. While a fraction of these items are recycled, the majority continue to be discarded. It becomes a common issue of “out of sight, out of mind”; but as landfills are packed with material such as plastics that never break down, we continue to build tomorrow’s problem every day.
In an ideal world, such items would never be thrown away. They would be packaged up and shipped to recycling plants and then to manufacturers that utilized these materials to once again produce usable goods. A growing number of forward-looking companies have been founded on these very principles—and are setting a fine example of the future world we all need to start creating now.
“Nothing Wasted. Everything Gained.”
So goes the motto of a firm called Preserve that was founded on completely sustainable principles.
“The idea driving the company, when our founder, Eric Hudson, started it, was to capitalize on and promote the growing consumer interest in household recycling, to really prove the impact of that recycling, to close the loop for the consumer and help him or her see the real value of their recycling efforts,” Preserve marketing director C. A. Webb told Organic Connections. “The concept was to also create new markets for different types of plastics that were underrecycled. So, specifically, we’ve chosen to use number 5 polypropylene, which is a fantastic lightweight material that maintains its integrity after it’s been recycled over and over again.”
Because it’s FDA approved, #5 polypropylene is highly prevalent in food containers, such as yogurt cups and health-food packaging, and in many other forms. Oddly, this particular type of plastic is not recycled in most communities, and due to its usability and longevity, Preserve is out to change that pattern. The company, along with partners Organic Valley and Stonyfield Farm, runs a program called “Preserve Gimme 5,” encouraging people to drop their #5 polypropylene in marked bins at numerous locations, now including Whole Foods Market stores. The program puts these items back into the manufacturing cycle and continues their lives.
It’s no mean feat. In addition to postconsumer collection of this material, they also collect this plastic from industrial sources. With branded products that consumers are accustomed to seeing, consistency of appearance is important, and the company has had to learn how to collect and efficiently use various items for coloring and thickness. One trick has been to produce a now famous black-handled toothbrush, as plastic of any color can be utilized for it. Another is to maintain plentiful sources of light-colored containers and clear container tops, since these can be easily colored.
Preserve has certainly made it all work. Their line consists of personal care products, comprising several toothbrushes, razors, tongue cleaners and flavored toothpicks; tableware, including plates, cutlery and tumblers; and a variety of kitchenware.
Eye appeal has been important to the company, and to reinforce this they have partnered with a firm called Evo Design to produce a highly attractive range of kitchenware, including colanders, food storage containers, mixing bowls, measuring cups and cutting boards.
This collaboration seems to be paying off. In the natural channel, Preserve products are best sellers in all of their lines and are now spreading into other channels as well. They are available nationally at Whole Foods Market and Target locations, and are additionally in a wide variety of natural food stores and grocery stores. They can also be found on Amazon.com and at their own website, www.preserveproducts.com.
“Our aim has always been to reduce the impact caused by the industrial age,” said Webb. “On more of a consumer level, it’s you a product that has great style, that you’re glad to bring into your home and use, that performs as well as or better than other products that you could have bought, and if we can do it with better materials and a better process made closer to home so it has a reduced environmental impact, and sell it to you at a price that’s competitive with all the other products that are next to it on the shelf, then we’ve won. And that’s really what we aim to do—provide a great product that’s better for the earth and that delivers on what we all need.”
Radius: Toothbrush of the Future
In the early 1980s, two architects living on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands made the decision to move away from architecture and “find an area of life that needed improving.” They shortly arrived at the toothbrush— an implement that had remained virtually unchanged since the 1950s. Appalled at the small-headed hard toothbrushes of the day, they became fascinated by the idea of a functional and enjoyable toothbrush. Research indicated that the major problem in oral hygiene was that of compliance—people didn’t use toothbrushes for long enough and tended to keep their toothbrushes for too long. Dentists believed that with diligence, teeth and gums could be perfectly maintained for a lifetime. So the two partners set out to make a toothbrush that was comfortable, efficient and fun to use.
They carved their prototype out of wood, and the Radius toothbrush was born. The final design, launched in 1983, was about two-thirds the thickness of an Oral-B 40 and had four times more bristles. It came in right- or left-handed versions, and the body of the toothbrush was made of cellulose, a plant-based plastic.
“No one else had ever done anything with a handle that was so solid, beautiful and thick,” Saskia Foley, Radius executive vice president, told Organic Connections. “You didn’t want it too heavy, you didn’t want it to break, but you wanted some warmth to it. Cellulose was the chosen plastic because it’s made from wood and it comes from sustainable yield forests.”
The company was not only using sustainable materials, it was having to evolve technologies in order to manufacture such radical toothbrush designs. One example is their toothbrush heads. “The bristles in the head are basically a complete redesign from everything that’s ever existed in terms of toothbrushes,” Foley explained. “The standard toothbrush has a head consisting of 55 tufts of bristles. The reason why those tufts exist in that number was largely determined by machine capabilities; machines can only go so fast. The solution for that was to make the holes in the heads bigger in order to fit more bristles into each hole. Fewer holes to drill and less time to make the product meant it was cheaper. However, fewer holes with a lot more bristles in them ends up being considerably tougher on the mouth, because the bristles won’t bend as much, due to being bound so tightly together.
“Our replacement bristle heads have 77 tufts. The reason we can get that many is because we radiate the bristles. There is less plastic and there are substantially more bristles covering the surface of the plastic, allowing for twice as many bristles in your mouth as with a standard toothbrush.” That arrangement of bristles means that not only do tight spots get brushed but gums are massaged as well.
Brushing longer is also a factor in good oral hygiene. Radius solves this problem with their Intelligent Toothbrush containing a two-minute timer, ensuring that the user brushes long enough.
Evolution in design and sustainable materials continue to be part and parcel of the Radius method of operation, and the company recently released a uniquely designed toothbrush—with a handle made from shredded dollar bills. “This past summer I was researching different materials and I came across old currency,” said Foley. “The United States Mint recalls old, worn-out bills from banks, gives the banks credit for them and then they are shredded. Sometimes people buy the shredded bills for gags and use them in gift boxes, but they’ve never been used in any kind of industrial sense. It looks great—very ‘bling-bling’— and it’s reusing something that would be thrown away regardless, and it mixes with recycled plastic.”
Handles are also being made with recycled flax husks that are a wasted by-product of the linen production process. Along with toothbrushes, the company offers snazzy toothbrush, razor, soap and other travel cases as well as a selection of biodegradable silk and natural cranberry dental flosses.
Radius products are available at Whole Foods Market, the Vitamin Shoppe, Bed Bath & Beyond and many other stores nationwide. To find a store near you, or to purchase direct, visit the company’s website at www.radiustoothbrush.com.
Setting the Example
The “traditional” manufacturing model of producing goods from non-sustainable raw materials that are then simply wasted cannot continue—at least not on this planet. Companies would do well to look to Preserve and Radius as examples of the only future that is truly open to us.
