Combining evidence-based healthcare with environmental sustainability: using the toothbrush as a model

Introduction Healthcare professionals should consider environmental sustainability when recommending medical devices to patients, although there is currently little quantitative data available. The toothbrush is a widely recommended healthcare device worldwide. The aim of this study was to compare the sustainability of different types of toothbrush.

Materials and methods Four types of toothbrush were studied: a traditional plastic and electric toothbrush, as well as a plastic manual toothbrush with replaceable heads and a bamboo manual toothbrush. Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was applied to quantify the environmental impact of these toothbrushes over five years.

Results The electric toothbrush performed consistently poorly compared to the three manual toothbrush types and had the greatest impact in 15 out of 16 environmental categories. The bamboo and replaceable-head plastic toothbrushes had the lowest impact in all categories. The climate change potential of the electric toothbrush was 11 times greater than the bamboo toothbrush.

Discussion Switching toothbrushes from the traditional toothbrushes to bamboo or replaceable-head plastic is more environmentally sustainable. These results could be used to inform individual consumer choice, oral health recommendations, procurement of toothbrushes for public health programmes and toothbrush manufacturers. LCA methodology can be used to make healthcare more sustainable.