Our Twitter (and offline) Friend & Health Coach Ali Shapiro has a recycling conundrum to address with one of her bathroom essentials:

@greenphillyblog Any ideas on how to recycle burnt out electric toothbrushes. It says recycle appropriately but don’t know where!

— Ali Marie Shapiro (@AliMShapiro) May 6, 2013

philly recycling rules: electronic Toothbrushes

Good question Ali! You can’t toss those electric toothbrushes in your single-stream recycling bin. We reached out to our Philadelphia recycling sources, who addressed the problem:

Theoretically they should be recyclable along with our #3-7 mixed plastics. Toothbrushes are so small that they will invariably “fall through the cracks” at the MRF. MRFs and their automated sort lines are designed to screen out much larger pieces of plastic (e.g. a yogurt tub on up). Hand sorting of pens, toothbrushes, etc. off of MRF conveyor lines would not only be dangerous, but also impractical in a facility that processes more than 200,000 tons of recyclables each year.

WHERE TO RECYCLE ELECTRONIC TOOTHBRUSHES

All hope isn’t lost. TDR Recycling in Fremont, California accepts cords, electric toothbrush components and will recycle any electric toothbrushes it receives in the mail. Mail to: TDR Electronic Recycling LLC,44865 Industrial Drive, Fremont, CA 94538. (Address updated 8/2015 thanks to our reader Robert reaching out.)

You can green your toothbrushing by reusing old ones (for cleaning, etc.) or go with a program like Preserve’s toothbrush “subscription”. You receive a new toothbrush every 3 months along with a mail-back pack to return (and recycle) the previous model. Unfortunately they don’t come in electric versions… yet. However, Preserve’s models are 100% recycled #5 plastic, BPA free & made in the USA. Plus, you get sweeeet color choices like grass green, magenta, sky blue or assorted.

Readers, do you have any secret green toothbrush recycling methods?

Photo: Environmental impex

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Julie Hancher is Editor-in-Chief of Green Philly, sharing her expertise of all things sustainable in the city of brotherly love. She enjoys long walks in the park with local beer and greening her travels, cooking & cat, Sir Floofus Drake. View all posts by Julie Hancher