Household
Functional and beautiful, the A Slice of Green brushes, fabric reusables and sponges offer eco-friendly solutions for household cleaning tasks.
The brushes are made by our producer in Germany from plant-based bristles and beech wood handles sourced from a sustainable forest-certified supplier. The plant-based bristles ensure the brushes are vegan-friendly and each bristle type has specific properties:
Tampico
Pale yellow bristles. Tampico is a heat resistant plant fibre obtained from the leaf ribs of two Agave species native to Mexico. It is resistant to acids and alkalis, has high elasticity and good water absorption.
Our Shaped Dish Brush; Bottle Brush; Replaceable Head Dish Brush; Dish Brush Head; Small Nailbrush; Scrubbing Brush all have Tampico bristles.
Union (Tampico and Bassine)
Dark brown and pale yellow bristles. Union is a blend of Tampico and Bassine fibres. Tampico is the softer fibre obtained from the leaf ribs of two Agave species native to Mexico. It has high elasticity and good water absorption. Bassine is the coarser fibre which is made from the leaf ribs of the Palmyra palm, native to India and Sri Lanka.
Our Pot Brush features Union bristles, and our Vegetable Brush features half Union and half Tampico.
Tampico/Coconut Mix
Dark and light brown coloured bristles. A hard-wearing blend of Tampico and Coconut fibres. Tampico is obtained from the leaf ribs of two Agave species native to Mexico. It has high elasticity and good water absorption. Coconut fibres are obtained from the coconut palm, grown in Sri Lanka and India. They are lightweight, tough and strong, even when wet.
Our Toilet Brush has a mix of Tampico and Coconut bristles.
The brushes are made in Europe by an owner-managed family company, committed to sustainability and environmental protection as well as maintaining jobs to support the rural community.
To minimise unnecessary packaging, brushes are supplied in boxes of 10 with A Slice of Green information card for display.
At the end of their life, the brushes can be recycled. The bristles can be removed with pliers/scissors and composted, and the beech wood can either be upcycled, cut up for use as kindling or taken to a recycling centre where it will be made into woodchips/mulch. Any stainless steel parts can be removed with pliers and put with waste food cans for household recycling.
Fabric Reusables
The Unpaper towels and Unsponges offer a reusable, sustainable option for kitchen disposables. Made from 100% GOTS certified organic cotton stitched with polycotton thread for strength and durability, they are designed to be durable but at the end of useful life they can be recycled as textiles.
Our manufacturer is a family business with their own sewing unit in Tamil Nadu, India. We visited the unit in 2018 and were impressed by the high standards. The cotton is grown on non GM, small farms in South India where the dry climate helps the cotton to grow well. It is then woven in GOTS certified weaving units and then screen printed using organic, azo-free dyes and sewn by our manufacturer.
The Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) is the worldwide leading textile processing standard for organic fibres and means the entire textile supply chain is independently certificated including both ecological and social criteria.
Cellulose Sponges
Cellulose is the material that makes up the walls of a plant cell and our sponges are made from wood pulp & cotton, which are abundant and renewable natural materials. Our UK manufacturer sources the raw material from the EU and creates usable shapes and sizes for cleaning and cosmetic tasks. Although the sponges go through a baking and rinsing process to achieve the pore structure, they are more eco-friendly than plastic sponges as the manufacturing process is less toxic and they are biodegradable. Cellulose sponge is hydrophilic, which means it readily absorbs water and can hold up to 10x its dry weight in water. This makes it a very effective cleaning aid and our sponges come in a range of shapes and sizes for cleaning and washing tasks both domestic and cosmetic, inside and outside the home! Cellulose sponges are biodegradable and 100% compostable but they are not explicitly tested as home compostable.