It is no secret that oral hygiene is a must for a healthy lifestyle. Your toothpaste is probably an important part of your dental hygiene routine... but is there a better way to brush?
Here are 8 things you probably never new about toothpaste...
1. People used to used crushed egg shells to brush their teeth
2. Some toothpaste brands contain Formaldehyde (the same chemical used for preserving bodies!)
3. The first toothbrush bristles were made from boar's hair
4. Toothpaste tubes take between 500-800 years to break down. Yup, that means every toothpaste tube you've ever used in your life is still sitting in a landfill or ocean somewhere.
5. Toothpaste contains so many chemicals (including SLS and Triclosan) that you could clean your toilet with it.
6. The 'microbeads' in some toothpastes and gels are actually just tiny beads of plastic.
7. Toothpaste tubes can never be recycled, only downcycled. This means that the 'old' plastic in the tube has to be mixed with new plastic to create another product, and this can only be done 2-3 times before eventually going to landfill.
8. 1 billion toothpaste tubes end up in landfills and oceans every year - that's about 13,000 tonnes of plastic waste ending up in our landfills and oceans.
