The Handle Is Scalpel Steel. The Bristles Are Old PET Bottles.

Core77 covered the Berninox 316 on August 27. It is a toothbrush by Swiss product designer Julien Bernard, with a handle machined from 316L stainless steel, the alloy surgical instruments are made from, and a head that pops off and gets replaced when the bristles give out.

316L is the marine and medical grade: enough molybdenum in the mix to shrug off chlorides, which is why it survives autoclaves, salt water, and a lifetime of wet bathroom shelf. Berninox says the brush is dishwasher-safe and can be steam-sterilised, an odd sentence to write about a toothbrush and a precise claim about how long the object expects to be around. The heads are moulded from rPBT that is 56 percent recycled PET bottles, and they click on and off the handle by hand. Swiss-made, developed with dentists, six colourways. The handle is CHF 32.90, roughly $36. Three replacement heads are CHF 12.90, roughly $14. It is sold in Europe and Asia and not in the United States.

Every object in a bathroom has one component that dies before the rest of it, and most of the time the whole object goes in the bin on that component's schedule. Bernard drew the seam deliberately and put it where a thumb can reach. Maybe this is what happens when a designer decides in advance which part of a product is allowed to be mortal. What if that line were drawn visibly on more of what you own, so you could tell at a glance which part you bought and which part you are renting?