Toothbrush sanitation

How clean is your toothbrush? Or rather, how dirty is your toothbrush?

A moist toothbrush sitting on a bathroom countertop is a breeding ground for bacteria, especially since a bathroom can be the most unclean room in a typical house.  Those standard toothbrush holders where the brush sits upside down are basically the equivalent of your toothbrush yelling ”I’m over here” to all the bacteria floating around.

Even worse, when you use the toilet, micro droplets of whatever was in it can be thrust into the bathroom air, eventually to land on your screaming toothbrush.  That’s enough to make me ill just hearing about it…

There is research (google “toothbrush sanitizer” for a start) that indicates dirty toothbrushes & bacteria entering thru the mouth can lead to serious illness, so what to do? There are 2 possible easy solutions:

1) Store your toothbrush in a glass of mouthwash (with the bristles immersed in case that’s not obvious). This will kill any nasty stuff inhabiting it & prevent more from immigrating. A nice bonus is that your toothbrush will be all minty fresh. Be sure to change the mouthwash & wash the glass fairly often though as it can get a bit icky looking too after awhile.

2) Get a toothbrush sanitizer. This is what I did—I bought a Violight (http://www.violight.com), but there are a few other makes around. They are all basically the same idea: an ultraviolet light sterilizes your toothbrush as it sits in the holder. Also prevents any more bathroom cooties from landing on it between uses. Kinda gives your bathroom that blacklight nightclub kinda look too if you like that sort of thing.

Create a healthier environment

I was just watching TV & was inspired by a commercial, of all things. Most of what I have written here has been about things you can do to make yourself healthier, but another way to improve things is to make your environment healthier, or at least less damaging to your health and that of others.

Most of you will have seen An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s environmental documentary–if you haven’t seen it, you should. The point here is that we should also worry about the health of the earth, as well as our own. If the planet is sick, we will soon be too.

So what can you do, on an everyday basis? Here are some ideas:

1) Turn off , or hibernate, your PC when not in use.

2) If you are thinking of getting a new PC, consider a laptop as they use less power.

3) Turn off lights, or get motion detectors installed so lights are only on where & when you need them.

4) Use reusable shopping bags rather than plastic.

5) Walk more, drive less. Take transit or get a bicycle.

6) Use environmentally-friendly cleaning products.

7) Get a reusable stainless steel or glass water bottle.

These are just some things you can do everyday that will help.

I would now like to hear from you readers for some other ideas. What do you do daily to save the planet? Submit your ideas as comments & I will post a list of them for us all to use.