Why is my biodegradable floss packaged in petrochemicals?

It's probably not a question that plagues you late at night but the short answer is the US government. A few weeks ago I wrote about my floss of choice. It's made of silk, which makes it nontoxic, renewable and biodegradable. That rose the question of why its so seemingly eco-minded manufacturers would package it in a plastic cartridge, so I shot off an email to Radius and here's their response:

The FDA considers floss a medical device and because of that they require anything that is sold in drug stores to be packaged in a plastic container. Since our products are sold in both drug stores and natural product stores we must abide by that law. We have considered creating alternative packaging for the natural product industry but since we also sell in drug stores we cannot have an entire cardboard container until the laws are changed.

I guess plastic packaging is one way to keep things sterile. And if it's plant-derived plastic that'll get shuffled into an indefinite recycling loop, then there's nothing technically keeping it from being zero-impact. But most plastics are still petroleum-derived, with Coke's PlantBottle as one highly visible (and recent) exception.

Is plastic really protecting me from my floss? It certainly can't be the first time the FDA's been off the mark. The typical tale is that regulations impede entrepreneurship yet are instrumental in protecting public health. I wonder to what extent regulation is impeding ecological sustainability.

Sustainable Teeth

I didn't think there'd be many options out there for making my dental care more sustainable but I was wrong. I was lucky enough to discover a few local options that require less plastic and other wastes.

The first is organic silk floss from Radius, whose main selling point for me is that it's biodegradable. The silk itself, however, is cased in a plastic shell. A spool - with or without an aluminum bit for cutting - would suffice for me and would also reduce the amount of packaging needed. It's currently housed in a plain card paper sheath. Maybe making it more compact would complicate its distribution. It's still the best commercially available floss I've found.

For my new favorite toothbrush I've chosen Preserve. There's still some virgin plastic - for bristles and the pack - but the handle, and thus the majority, comes from a secondary source: yogurt cups. And once you're due for another brush, you can send your old one off to Preserve, where they recycle it. Since the inflow of plastic is well-controlled, that's presumably into other toothbrushes. So unlike conventional recycling - which deals with mixed plastics by compromising structure or pitching them - there'd be no downcycling or runoff into the environment.

As for toothpaste, one option is DIY. My friend's father, a pretty distinguished oral surgeon, insists that with fluoridated water, baking soda is all you really need. However, home recipes - for the most part variations on the straight up baking soda method - abound. My Plastic-free Life recommends some commercial tooth powders that I'd like to give a shot, but I have yet to find any near me.

In an economy and society as heterogeneous as ours, we're presented with countless choices and the ability to drive the market in one direction or another. As comedian Elvira Kurt put it, even something as seemingly simple as the toothbrush - in essence, a stick - is evolving. And thanks to that, as ridiculous as it may seem, we have cleaner options and - not so clean options.

comedians.comedycentral.com