Our Sustainability Story: How @BambuuBrush Began the Fight Against Plastic Pollution
At @BambuuBrush, our journey began with a passion for travel, a shared love for the environment, and an urgent mission: to combat the devastating effects of plastic pollution. As Founders, we’ve experienced firsthand the beauty of our planet and the growing threats it faces from plastic waste. From pristine beaches in Southeast Asia to the Mediterranean coasts of Europe, the impact of plastic pollution is impossible to ignore—and it’s what drove us to create a solution that makes a difference.
The Aha Moment: Turning Passion Into Purpose
Traveling across 44 countries over a decade, Rebecca and Tommie witnessed both the wonders of nature and the heartbreaking reality of pollution. Beaches once teeming with life were littered with plastic waste, harming wildlife and threatening ecosystems.
One defining moment occurred on the Thai island of Koh Lipe, where the shoreline was inundated with plastic waste twice daily. Another was in Moalboal, Philippines, where we saw turtles mistaking floating plastic bags for jellyfish. The most eye-opening experience, however, happened in Nice, France, when a wave of plastic hit us while swimming. These moments solidified our resolve to act.
Plastic pollution is not just a regional problem—it’s a global crisis. We realized we had a responsibility to leverage our voices, social media platforms, and creativity to inspire change.
We spent a large amount of our time in the most beautiful places in South East Asia, and began to revisit places in which we had travelled in previous years and this is where we started to see first hand the increasing damage plastic pollution is having not only on our environment but to ourselves as humans.
During our time travelling the globe, we have seen a dramatic difference in the quality of the world’s beaches and noticed a steep increase in the amount of plastic pollution ending up on coastlines, and in general in our environment. There are a number of key moments in which turned the tide in our mindset and where we refocused our energy towards making positive impacts to our planet and using our platform on social media to spread that awareness.
The first instance was when we first left Australia, in July 2016, and started to develop our skills in social media and we travelled to the remote Thai Island of, Koh Lipe. Koh Lipe is not one of the popular Thai islands and resides on the border between the south of Thailand and the north of Malaysia. The reason we were visiting was due to when Rebecca had lived in Thailand almost 6years prior, she had travelled to Koh Lipe and had constantly referred to the island as "The most beautiful place she had ever seen", and naturally wanted Tommie to experience it. The island of Koh Lipe was absolutely stunning and true to Rebecca's word it was up there with some of the most pristine waters and incredible views we have witnessed together. Although it was certainly paradise there was such an abundance of plastic pollution arriving on the shores twice a day when the tides are retracted back to the ocean and it was evident that this was a serious problem. Tommie was so shocked at the state of the beaches that it drove Tommie to speak on camera for the first time to highlight "the parts of paradise that you do not see on social media".
Another instance was during one visit to the Philippines at the beginning of 2018 gave us with a heartbreaking image while sat on the sands of Panagsama Beach, Moalboal. This iconic beach is world famous for “The Sardine Run”, and for swarms of jellyfish, with an abundance of jellies in the shallow waters, turtles often flock to the area. I sent up the drone in an attempt to catch a glimpse of these majestic creatures from above, and within a minute we spotted two turtles swimming - I was super stoked! Unfortunately the excitement was quickly tarnished, as amongst the coral was an array of plastic bags, cups, straws, and other man-made items floating around. The image of one of the turtles mistaking a plastic bag for a jellyfish and trying to eat it really resonated with me, and we have remembered it ever since.
At that moment, we truly understood the impact that we as human beings have on our natural planet really hit home. Places of natural beauty like Panagsama Beach should be memorable for the endless positives, rather than for sinister images of magnificent species being put at risk due to our own behaviours and materialistic choices. We as humans are destroying some of the worlds endangered mammals and spectacular sea creatures, and we struggle to see this as “natural” in the natural world.
The "straw that broke the camels back" moment during our travels was in Nice, France in the summer of 2018. The majority of our jobs in social media were based around Asia and naively, plastic pollution became the norm and although it was horrible to witness with us seeing this most days it wasn't as hard hitting as the initial instance. Quite negatively in our minds it became "Ahhh it's Asia, plastic pollution is the norm". This is where Nice, France was a game changing moment. We picked up a job to travel around Europe for 8weeks in a campervan visiting 30 different cities, 16 different countries. Throughout this trip we began to understand that plastic pollution is just an "Asian Problem" this was a global nightmare that not many people were addressing. The key moment in Nice was we were out swimming in the sea and then a wave of plastic waste just hit us. Plastic bags, crisp packets, sandwich bags, everything. At this moment we knew that we needed to use our platform on social media in a positive way to educate and inspire people and we needed to look into products that we can help people make simple changes away from plastic.
From that moment we started researching more into plastic pollution it was clear that impacts on our environment were so apparent, and also the negative impacts of plastic pollution on a someone's health. We knew that we needed to work out "HOW" can we combat this.
As we continued to work with companies and organisations in the travel industry to balance out the negative impacts travel has on our planet with positive, give back actions we became more aware that we needed to use our own social media platform and loyal following and get our followers more engaged with plastic pollution and our environment. This was the moment that we began to look into products and a brand that we could take to market to inspire people that we can all make simple changes away from plastic.
The Birth of @BambuuBrush
In late 2018, we began exploring ways to address this crisis. We discovered startling statistics:
- Over 3.6 billion plastic toothbrushes are sold annually, most ending up in landfills or oceans.
- By 2050, there could be more plastic than fish in the ocean.
- Plastic pollution impacts not just wildlife but also human health, with microplastics found in food chains and linked to severe health issues.
A Mission-Driven Business
From the outset, we built @BambuuBrush on core values of sustainability, transparency, and giving back. We set ambitious goals, such as our #1MillionBy2020 campaign to inspire one million people to switch from plastic to bamboo toothbrushes.
Our journey hasn’t been without challenges. With little business experience and limited funds, we leaned on the generosity of friends and our determination to make a difference. In January 2019, we officially launched @BambuuBrush. Since then, we’ve sold millions of toothbrushes worldwide, preventing over 140,000kg of plastic waste from polluting our planet.
More Than Just a Product
For us, @BambuuBrush is about more than toothbrushes. It’s about empowering people and businesses to embrace sustainability. From partnerships with like-minded organizations to collaborations with global brands like Virgin Atlantic and LUSH Cosmetics, we continue to expand our impact.
We don’t expect to solve the plastic problem overnight, but we believe in the power of collective action. By making one simple change, like swapping to a bamboo toothbrush, we can inspire others to adopt sustainable habits that ripple across the globe.
Join the Movement
At @BambuuBrush, we’re driven by the belief that:
"One simple change, multiplied by millions, will change the world."
Are you ready to join us? Start your journey toward sustainability today by making the switch to @BambuuBrush and becoming part of a global movement fighting plastic pollution, one toothbrush at a time.