The Suri recyclable electric toothbrush is my favorite eco-friendly self-care swap

Some eco-friendly home swaps hit harder than others. While some are technically sustainable in material (e.g., a bamboo soap dish), they don’t exactly tackle the root of a daily environmental threat (e.g., recurring plastic waste).

For the past several years, I’ve rewired myself to find the path of least waste in any situation, especially in my habits at home. What I’ve come to realize is that the list of things you could be doing to live more sustainably (but aren’t) doesn’t have to be the massive or frumpy undertaking that most people think it is. The Suri toothbrush is a stellar example of that, merging style and sustainability in a way that could finally convince people to green up their bathroom routine.

Suri and its travel case are super lightweight and go with me everywhere.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

The Suri recyclable electric toothbrush fills a huge gap

Eco-friendly toothbrushes historically haven’t been stylish. I can’t blame anyone for thinking a bamboo handle feels splintery, or for being icked out by the way white toothpaste dries on the wood-like texture.

Plus, many modern folks don’t even want to settle for a manual toothbrush, anyway. In the ancient aughts of the 2000s, manual toothbrushes were overwhelmingly the norm. If I went to a friend’s house and they had an electric toothbrush, it was like, “OK, this is a fancy house.” But now, it’s kind of the opposite. It’s super likely to walk into someone’s bathroom and see an electric toothbrush, especially given the fact that you can find one for as low as $20 or $30.

That demand then posed a need for an eco-friendly electric toothbrush option. Suri found a way to meet people where they’re at with this hygiene habit.

How does Suri’s recycling process work?

Electric toothbrushes in general aren’t necessarily better for the environment than manual ones if the plastic replacement heads are just going in the trash. But that’s not what’s happening with Suri’s plastic-free design.

Suri replacement heads come with a mailer to send back the old ones.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

The handheld body, which you’ll reuse, is made of sturdy, recyclable aluminum, while the replaceable brush heads are made of cornstarch.

Materials aside, the best part about the Suri toothbrush is that you don’t have to figure out what your local recycling rules are — because Suri does it for you. Around every two or three months, once your bristles are noticeably frayed, you just pop the old brush head into an included pre-paid mailer and drop it off with USPS. A pack of three replacement heads costs $18.99, and three heads should last nearly nine months.

Sustainable options need to be as easy as Suri

In my many years of being on everyone’s ass about making more earth-friendly decisions, I’ve developed a pretty solid idea of what changes people are willing to make in their daily lives.

Given the financial and mental stresses of simply existing as an adult, the “but it’s good for the environment!” argument often doesn’t justify having to jump through hoops to live more sustainably. Understandably, it’s also hard to get people motivated when they know that their personal efforts are probably being canceled out by the emissions spewed out by big tech like Google or the billions of pounds of plastic waste dumped by Coca-Cola each year.

But ignoring personal action because it “won’t matter” in the grand scheme of things is a fallacy. What if a giant group of people decided that their personal daily habits actually would do something? As minuscule as it sounds, a toothbrush is a great place to start — a mass of people ditching disposable toothbrushes for good could put a real dent in the billion toothbrushes thrown away globally each year.

Are electric toothbrushes better than manual ones?

Mouth hygiene deserves so much more attention than the mindless two-ish minute motion implanted into our brains since childhood. Like TikTok’s beloved Tefi Pessoa (@hellotefi), many of us were today years old when we found out that the correct order for your oral care regimen is floss, then mouthwash, then brush teeth. Similarly, it may or may not be common knowledge that traditional manual toothbrushes aren’t as effective as electric ones.

This mostly has to do with how their respective bristles combat plaque. Electric toothbrushes use high-speed buzzes to push bristles (and subsequently, toothpaste) between teeth and chip away at plaque on the surface.

This is a level of meticulousness that just can’t really be achieved with manual brushing alone. Plus, using too much elbow grease when brushing manually is just begging for irritated gums and frazzled bristles that look like they just clean grout.

Suri dishes out 33,000 sonic vibrations per minute to scrub your teeth. Even though it’s not the oscillating design that some competitors have, Suri says this strategic vibrational approach removes five times more plaque than a manual toothbrush. Quip toothbrushes use a similar approach. After more than six months with my Suri, I can confirm that it’s a noticeably more wholesome clean than what I was doing by hand with my old toothbrush.

Suri’s settings aren’t as advanced as some other electric toothbrushes. A single button controls two intensity modes, and I am personally very fine with an app not being involved. Every 30 seconds, buzzing pauses momentarily to tell you to move to a different quadrant of your mouth. Simple, yet effective.

Working Suri into your routine is seriously seamless

Suri is not only more sustainable but also arguably cuter than other electric toothbrushes. And in a world where morning and nighttime routines have become somewhat of a religious experience, the aesthetics of the once-humble toothbrush cannot be understated.

The color options here are the cherry on top of the already-appealing minimalist design. There are five pastel hues to choose from: winter fern (green), morning waves (blue), midnight black, sea mist (pearly white), and sunset bloom (salmony pink). There’s a chic shade for everyone, to the point where this is the rare occasion that a toothbrush would actually be a cool gift to give or receive. That’s how my mom now has a Suri.

The Suri toothbrush hanging on my bathroom mirror.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

The Suri toothbrush charging on my bathroom counter.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

You can let your Suri chill upright on the counter or hang it on the mirror with the included mirror mount. Either way, its curb appeal objectively beats that of the average plastic toothbrush in a toothbrush holder that’s never been washed.

Speaking of de-crustifying, the travel case that comes with Suri feels significantly more sanitary than any previous toothbrush travel case I’ve used. (They somehow perpetually have dried toothpaste on them no matter how many times I’ve washed them.) Inside the Suri case lid lies a UV-C light said to kill 99.9 percent of any harmful bacteria that’s inevitably building up on your bristles.

Crisp hotel bed sheets and a fancy, UV-sanitized toothbrush.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

Regardless of how you store it, you won’t have to worry about setting up the charging cord more than once a month. I’ve been using my Suri for six months now and have only had to charge it a handful of times — the claimed “40+ day battery life” isn’t a stretch at all. When the red light indicates that the battery is running low, you can get back to a full charge in four hours. I didn’t even have to pack my charger on my eight-day trip to Disney World. At home, I have to charge my Suri so infrequently that I keep forgetting where I store the charger.

Is the Suri electric toothbrush worth it?

Yes, I genuinely think the Suri toothbrush is worth it. Of all of the sustainable swaps I’ve tried in my bathroom routine, Suri required some of the least work on my part. Plus, there’s just something energetically rewarding about knowing a product is actively reducing your personal trash output.

To be fair, Suri’s recycling system does cost more than many traditional toothbrushes, and does require you to make an occasional pitstop at USPS. Not everyone will be down to make those changes. But IMO, Suri’s cost and minimal extra effort was a negligible adjustment, one absolutely worth it to cut back on my personal landfill contribution.