A brilliant green smile

In my ongoing quest to discover how to go green my focus recently turned to brushing my teeth. I bought, by mail order, toothpaste and mouth wash by Green People. The toothpaste proudly proclaims that it has no fluoride, no sodium lauryl sulphate, no chemically processed chalk and no aluminium contamination from the tube as it is lined with a food grade lacquer. It also professes to be 100% natural and that it contains certified organic ingredients. On closer inspection it turns out that only the peppermint oil is organic. The paste itself is beige in colour and a bit runny compared to "normal" toothpaste. In use the experience is very different to what you'd expect. It doesn't foam (because there's no sodium lauryl sulphate) and the peppermint flavour isn't very sweet. I guess because I've grown accustomed to the chemical concoctions available in the supermarket I found the Green People toothpaste hard to use and have gone back to my normal brand - for now at least!

However, I have been putting the following into practice each time I brush my teeth:

• I never leave the tap running
• I use less toothpaste on the brush as most of it tends to fall off before it gets into my mouth anyway!
• I make sure I squeeze every last gram of toothpaste from the tube before throwing it away. You can use the edge of the sink to push all the paste to the top end of the tube and it looks far neater too!