Quality

We made a conscious decision to offer good products and not to make the kind of concessions that can be expected from mass products manufactured in extremely short production cycles. To meet our own expectations, we have to get every part of the product right: Materials and production have to be as environmentally friendly as possible, long transport routes are to be avoided and good workmanship and durability must be ensured.

The characteristics of a quality toothbrush

The workmanship of a toothbrush reveals its quality straight away. A separating line that can be felt and seen is not exactly evidence of a skilled, high-quality production. However, biodegradable raw materials have different properties, which make production more difficult – and visible separating lines or other optical imperfections nearly unavoidable.
One of the product’s most important features is the rounded bristle shape. Well-rounded bristles protect the gums and dental enamel. Only a microscope with a high resolution reveals the excellence of the rounding. yaweco toothbrushes are manufactured using state-of-the-art machines, which allow for optimal rounding. Each production batch is also examined under a microscope and only good parts are sold.
The materials are obviously also important. The toothbrush is used in the mouth. Therefore, it must be free of any harmful substances that may potentially migrate. To guarantee this, yaweco employs independent institutes to check the completed toothbrushes for all potentially harmful substances. We do not only rely on the assurances of the pre-suppliers of raw materials. The finished product is always checked to guarantee that the production process did not trigger a reaction that resulted in the creation of a problematic substance.

Bristle rounding

Another quality characteristic of a toothbrush is the rounding of the ends of its bristles. The bristles are first cut off and inserted into the toothbrush. When they are cut off, the ends of the bristles receive sharp edges. Sharp bristle ends damage the dental enamel, lead to increased dental enamel wear and injure the gums. In order to prevent this from occurring, the bristles of yaweco toothbrushes are rounded or polished with cutting edge machines. The difference between unpolished and optimally rounded bristles can only be detected under a microscope – ideally an electron microscope. These microscopic images are taken to check the quality of each production batch in order to ensure that the bristles of each toothbrush are optimally rounded.

Bio-based materials and their disposal

The umbrella term ``bio-based`` refers to raw materials that are either produced from renewable resources or that are biodegradable. One is not contingent on the other.

Renewable raw materials

The most important component for the production of conventional plastics is petroleum (Naphtha), which is made from crude oil. Alternative materials are manufactured on the basis of other types of oils or plant substances, such as castor oil, corn starch, etc.

Biodegradable

DIN ISO 14855 defines what may be referred to as biodegradable. This standard regulates a type of technical composting. It precisely stipulates how long and under what conditions (a consistently high temperature and organic additives) a substance needs to be completely decomposed. That means the composting process in this case refers to a technical plant and not a natural environment, such as a private compost.
yaweco manufactures the plastic hood of all toothbrush packaging using a PET with bio-PET. The bio-PET contains mono-ethylene-glycol (MEG), which is made from sugar cane.

yaweco uses a biodegradable plastic for the replacement head of the interchangeable brush head toothbrush I as well as for the single-colour coloured interchangeable brush head toothbrush II. The exact recipe cannot be made public but an overview of the materials can be provided. They consist of more than 60% of biopolymers on the basis of sugar components as well as mineral fillers, natural waxes and biodegradable additives.

Disposal

Biodegradable plastics can and should be disposed of along with conventional plastics. Plastics in plastic waste are sorted and recycled according to their base material. Until now, bio-based plastics have rarely been recycled because there are so few of them. They are treated like residual waste. Efforts to reuse these plastics are still in their initial stages. The more plastic waste made of bio-based materials is produced, the more likely it is that they will be recycled. That is the recommendation of the dual system in Germany. The bio-PET packaging film is an exception. It is recognised as PET and recycled as such.

Vegan

Generally, the recipes of the different plastic components do not contain animal substances. That is also the case for the materials used by yaweco. However, because they have different properties, animal fats may be used as auxiliary materials or fuel. That only happens in rare cases and with low quantities which means the finished goods contain hardly any or no traces of these substances.