Perhaps some boiling water over your toothbrushes would help you reduce your use. After they are no longer useable in your mouth, we felt pen the handles and put thme into the cleaning buckets, they work great on grout and in cracks around sinks.... then they have done double duty. I make sure they are boiled before and after all purposes so we don't spread around germs. A very interesting viewpoint she has made, make the corporations take their products back and deal with them..... if they did promise to reuse and recycle ... we would buy from them.

The video shows her putting toothbrushes in a standard recycling bin. In most areas toothbrushes are not accepted as part of standard plastics recycling. The video was submitted from Brooklyn, NY. In that ciy only plastic containers #1 and#2 are accepted.

If that is the case the video shows someone actually contaminating the recycling stream - not really a good message.

Re-use is good. You can also extend the life of a toothbrush by dunking weekly in Hydrogen Peroxide to kill bacteria.

Consumers clearly still need more alternatives for used petro-goods. After maximum composting and recycling, most of our _waste_ is still plastics.

In North Portland, a re-refining company receives all sorts of oil/petroleum waste products, preventing leaching from spill sites and parking lots into rivers and streams. Their on-site Bio-Mass plant burns oil filters, oily rags and wood for power and refining heat, keeping dangerous stuff out of landfills. DEQ permits and monitors ORRCO's capture of emissions, which go back into several of their oil-related products. An underground tank even collects liquid _plastic_ for which they don't yet have a Customer. I'll call Bill at ORRCO to see if they can adapt or already receive Bulk delivery of *any* other plastic that currently goes into the waste stream.

More on Emissions at pdxJules' Blog at:
http://360.yahoo.com/