Living an eco-friendly life can be tough, especially when starting to look at everyday routines with a more "green" eye.
Reusables, like steel bottles, cotton bags and travel silverware, are a good jumping-off point, but things quickly get complicated once you start looking at all the little things around the house.
The bathroom cabinet alone can hold half a dozen small necessities made up of a myriad of materials, most without any obvious answer for whether they can be reused or recycled. Switching to a bamboo toothbrush is an easy first step, since they biodegrade unlike plastic, but floss containers tend to get overlooked much longer.
Floss is something most people never give much thought to. But it turns out those little spools of floss are an environmental minefield.
For one, dental floss is usually housed in a plastic container. If that container isn't recyclable, the packaging is going to end up in a landfill for upwards of 500 years. Multiply that by how many containers of floss get used in a year, and it adds up fast.
Then there's the floss itself. Most floss is made out of nylon, another non-biodegradable material, meaning more landfill time. That is, if the nylon even makes it to a landfill.
Being such a small piece of litter, dental floss, and other types of small plastic, often gets swept up in the disposal process and ends up in the ocean. Floss, designed specifically not to tear, is a real problem there: like other plastics, it can end up suffocating marine animals or getting stuck in their stomachs, where it often stays for years, causing serious health issues.
This is a perfect example of how being more conscious about "little" things, like toothbrushes and floss, adds up to a tangible, incremental impact.
Nylon floss also often comes waxed in various flavors. Waxed floss is stain- and stick-resistant, meaning it moves between teeth more easily, and it comes in pleasant flavors like mint and evergreen. But floss wax manufacturers created these qualities using perfluorinated chemicals, or PFCs. PFCs are found in tons of goods including clothes, cookware and furniture, and they've been the target of numerous health studies in recent years. While the science isn't definitive yet, PFCs appear to be much more problematic than once thought.
Luckily, the market has expanded, and there are now more eco-friendly floss options made from a variety of materials, or the option to forgo floss altogether and try a water-based solution.
One of the easiest floss alternatives on the market is silk floss. Silk floss is natural, plastic-free, made out of silk from silkworms, and doesn't require extra water to use the way traditional floss does. Unlike traditional dental floss, silk floss is biodegradable.
Many silk flosses use a natural, plant-based wax called candelilla wax instead of the usual PFCs. Being more eco-minded, silk floss often comes in small, reusable glass bottles, meaning it's possible to order a new spindle of floss instead of an entirely new package every time.
Silk floss isn't perfect. It's more expensive than regular dental floss, it can be weaker than nearly indestructible nylon floss, and it isn't vegan. But while not entirely zero waste, silk floss is compostable, non-toxic and eco-friendly, a solid upgrade over plastic and nylon.
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