Curaprox - Collecting used toothbrushes in Slovakia
Curaden Slovakia, the Slovak branch of the Swiss company Curaden AG, collects used toothbrushes for recycling in Slovakia.
The company has been encouraging consumers to recycle their end-of-life products since 2017 through public awareness campaigns. With the EU’s new regulation on banning eight single-use plastic products by 2021, the company will continue to focus on recycling used toothbrushes as their contribution to the circular economy.
The company has set up collection points in schools, businesses, shops and ambulances across Slovakia for people to drop off their used toothbrushes. Each donor who visits Curaprox's Smile Shops receives a 5 cent reduction on the purchase of a new toothbrush. Curaprox sorts the used toothbrushes, detaching the heads from the handles, and recycles them into small colored rubbish bins that are sent for educational purposes to selected schools around Slovakia.
©Curaden
- Three years into the project, more than 250 000 toothbrushes have been collected.
- 5200 rubbish bins were sent to 195 schools during the pilot years with two bins for each classroom, one for plastic and one for paper.
- The company says it will continue to conduct research on developing bioplastic toothbrushes that are partly biodegradable and produced solely using renewable energy.