At Christmas, we follow tradition and put up stockings. This year, one of the things in my stocking was a new toothbrush – and I've been grinning in the mirror as I brush my teeth ever since.

The toothbrush has a replaceable head so when the brush wears out, I can simply pop a new one into the handle. This means I'll lower my consumption of plastic, because I won't throw away three or four toothbrushes a year. All I'll throw away will be worn-out brushes.

My old toothbrush contained about 11 cubic centimetres of plastic (not counting the brush). This doesn't sound like much. But suppose 27 million people across Canada didn't throw away three toothbrushes this year.

They would lower their consumption of plastic by the equivalent of a plastic rope the thickness of your little finger that stretched all the way from Toronto to Tokyo.