Review: Bite Toothpaste Bits
The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
Confucius
If you’ve been reading along for the past few years, or even just the past few posts, you may already know that I’ve embarked on a journey to try to improve my lifestyle with more sustainable habits. By sustainable, I mean – looking at what’s already happened to our planet and understanding what small part I may have in improving this by paying more attention to my buying habits, single-use plastics, and fairly simple swap outs.
Some of the swaps I’ve already made at this point:
- Eliminating plastic straws
- Exclusive use of reusable shopping bags
- Eliminating single use utensils
- Eliminating single use plastic water bottles (metal water bottles for the win!)
- Silicone food storage bags over plastic ziplocks
- Milk in glass bottles over plastic (bottle deposit refunds are handled during checkout).
- Reusable cotton rounds
- 100% post consumer recycled paper products
There are certainly more, but I basically try to improve the lifestyle habit as soon as I notice it. This will continue over time. I’ve found the one-at-a-time habit replacement more sustainable than trying to change everything at once.
This brings me to the currently little change.
Toothpaste.
Toothpaste Factoids
I call these factoids because I can’t corroborate the citations in all cases but the numbers aren’t hard to extrapolate and generalize so they are in the ballpark.
- Most toothpaste tubes cannot be recycled (though plastic recycling is more fiction than fact if you dig into it. At least in Maryland, it goes to an incinerator. As the plastics resale market dwindled, this is true for more and more communities who prefer to perpetuate the optic over the reality). Toothpaste tubes are often lined with a metal layer or they use multiple types of plastics, which means it’s not worth separating them out a community IS recycling. The vast majority end up in landfill.
- A recent article from the British Dental Journal indicated that the UK alone uses 300 million tubes of toothpaste a year! That’s almost enough to circle the world twice when placed end to end.
- The United States is estimated to throw out 400 million tubes of toothpaste annually.
- A quick google search indicates that many sources agree the number worldwide is in the neighborhood of 1.5 billion toothpaste tubes discarded annually!
- Several companies have started to make fully recyclable toothpaste tubes. Colgate has lead the charge with their Tom’s of Maine toothpaste but committed to switching ALL toothpaste tubes to fully recyclable plastic by 2025! (Mind you per #1 above, plastic is still plastic.)
Toothpaste Tube Alternatives
As I was searching for solutions to move me away from the plastic toothpaste tube, I discovered there are more options than I realized. For this article, I only reviewed one brand and one type, but I want you to benefit from the information I’ve collected.
- Toothpaste Tubs – Nope. Not a spelling error. You can buy toothpaste in a glass jar, which is recyclable. Before you fixate on potential hygiene issues like I did, they come with a spatula to help you spread it on your toothbrush.
e.g. Tukiki Toothpaste in a Glass Jar and The Humble Company Dental Care Toothpaste in Glass Jar - Toothpaste Pouch – This takes the traditional tube and reimagines it, reducing plastic content by 84%. I wish the traditional toothpaste companies would do this. Maybe it’s worth a letter to Colgate.
e.g. Fully Charged Toothpaste Pouch - Toothpaste Powder – Going “old school”, this is a powder in a jar. I use charcoal powder in a jar for teeth whitening and it’s fine. I will probably try this format next. The one concern I have here is that reviews said the powder can get ruined with the water from a toothbrush over time. (Did you know the habit of wetting your toothbrush first is a throwback from the days when tooth powder was prevalent? With modern toothpaste formulas (in the tubes), you don’t actually need to wet the brush!)
e.g. La Saponaria WonderWhite Teeth-Whitening Powder-Gel and Frank Mineral Toothpaste Powder - Tooth Soap – Okay, the name grosses me out but essentially it’s a solid that you swirl your toothbrush in. That transfers the “soap” to the the brush. Also sold in recyclable glass containers. I have questions about hygiene here but I remain as intrigued as revolted.
e.g. Georganics Tooth Soap Stick and Alo Unflavored Tooth Suds - Toothpaste Tabs – This format interested me the most and if you search, there are many options available. As it sounds, they are toothpaste “servings” reduced to tabs. Typically you use one tab per brushing and you break it up in your mouth to create the “paste” to brush your teeth. The ones I found (except Native) are all sold in recyclable glass containers.
e.g. Bite Toothpaste Bits, Unpaste Tooth Tabs, Well Earth Goods Toothpaste Tablets, Huppy Toothpaste Tablets, denttabs, Native Toothpaste Tablets
Bite Toothpaste Bits
I ordered a sample size of two flavors, Mint and Charcoal, to see if I had any clear preference. They are small tabs and theoretically a single tab is used for a single brushing. I say “theoretically” because in the site reviews, users indicated that some felt you needed two tabs per brushing to get the job done. I tried both ways.
Thoughts
I found both the mint and charcoal flavors very refreshing. It gave me essentially the same feeling of mouth cleanliness when I was done brushing. When you break up the toothpaste bit, it immediately evokes the sense of a breath mint. It feels like it takes some concentration to not swallow it. I find this a little distracting but it may dissipate after longer user. I only tried it for a week (14 brushings) before I wrote this review.
Once you crunch it, the texture remains grainy and doesn’t get foamy like tube toothpaste. This is just different, neither worse or better. I did try both one and two tabs and didn’t notice a difference. I would use the single tab just for economy.
The Bite flavors I tried do not have fluoride in them. I know this is a selling point for some people. For me, I don’t mind fluoride and according to WebMD, new research indicates that adults can benefit from it as well. Many of us have fluoridated water which handily addresses this for us automatically. It’s something to note if you have small children around. Toothpaste tabs are enough like mints that you don’t want to risk a child eating them and ingesting fluoride unnecessarily. If I stick with tabs, since I don’t have children in my house, I will probably find one that has fluoride in it.
I thought I would like toothpaste bits better than I do after a week of use. I find the association with breath mints – a little confusing. And I’m not acclimated to the grittiness or lack of foam. However, my teeth FEEL as clean with the bits as with standard toothpaste. I love the look and feel of opening the little jar of toothpaste bits. It’s quite a bit more elegant than a gunky toothpaste tube. I LOVE the idea of these as part of my travel kit. I’m always trying to condense my carryon liquid bag. These can easily get tucked into luggage and free up a fair amount of space in the quart sized bag!
While I expected to be totally won over, this may be more of a slow conversion process. I will dutifully use up both sample containers and if my opinion changes substantially, I will be sure to update this article accordingly.
Sometimes we try small changes and they don’t work as well as expected. It happens. Other times change takes time to feel “normal”. I share my experiences with you to let you learn from my adventures. I remain committed to my journey to eliminate toothpaste tubes from my life. I’ll keep you posted.
If you are interested in checking out Bite Toothpaste Bits for yourself, go to trybite.com. If you love them, Bite offers a convenient subscription service as well!
Will you try them? Have you tried them? What other toothpaste products have you tried out? Please share in the comments below!
Disclosure: I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program. Some of these links are affiliate links. If you click a link and buy something, I may receive a commission for the sale. It does not cost you anything extra and you are free to use the link or not. Product purchases for review are made with my own money and my opinions are my own. If product is ever provided or the article is sponsored, it will be clearly noted at the top of the page.
