A single empty shampoo bottle in the bin doesn’t look like a problem. It’s the scale behind it that’s harder to picture, and once you see the actual numbers, the size of the bathroom plastic problem gets a lot clearer.
The Container Count
Half of all packaging placed on the Australian market ends up in landfill instead of being recycled, according to the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO), which recorded 2.9 million tonnes of packaging going to landfill in a single year. Shampoo bottles, conditioner bottles, body wash bottles and everything else that lives on a shower shelf are part of that pile, discarded at a rate that’s genuinely hard to picture until it’s written down as a single number. That's about 100kg per person.
Every. Single. Year.
Toothbrushes Alone
Roughly 3.5 billion toothbrushes are sold globally every year, according to WWF Australia, and most of them are plastic, built to be used for a few months and then thrown away for good. Plastic toothbrushes don’t break down in any meaningful timeframe, which means the vast majority of every toothbrush ever manufactured is very likely still somewhere on the planet right now.
Razors, By the Second
In Australia, an estimated 100 million disposable razors are thrown away every year, according to Little Aussie Communities, which works out to about 3 razors going into landfill every single second. That figure is just for Australia. It doesn’t include anywhere else disposable razors are sold, which is most of the world.
The Cosmetics Side of the Problem
Australia’s cosmetics industry, valued at an estimated $8 billion, creates thousands of tonnes of landfill waste every year, ABC News reported in 2022 (watch the video).
Why This Adds Up the Way It Does
None of these categories look dramatic individually. A toothbrush every few months. A razor every couple of weeks. A shampoo bottle every month or two. It’s the repetition, multiplied across an entire population, over years, that turns small, routine bathroom habits into numbers in the billions.
Where the Actual Leverage Is
The products in these categories that get replaced most often are exactly where a swap makes the biggest dent, because frequency is what turns a small individual choice into a large collective number. That’s the same logic behind starting with whichever bathroom product you’re about to run out of next rather than waiting for the perfect moment to overhaul everything at once.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much of Australia's packaging ends up in landfill?
Half of all packaging placed on the Australian market ends up in landfill rather than being recycled, according to the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO). That includes the shampoo, conditioner and body wash bottles that live on a shower shelf.
How many toothbrushes are sold globally each year?
Roughly 3.5 billion, according to WWF Australia. Most are plastic and do not break down in any meaningful timeframe once discarded.
How many disposable razors are thrown away each year?
An estimated 100 million in Australia alone, equivalent to about 3 razors entering landfill every second in this country. That figure doesn't include anywhere else disposable razors are sold, which is most of the world.
How much cosmetic waste goes to landfill in Australia annually?
Australia's cosmetics industry, worth an estimated $8 billion, creates thousands of tonnes of landfill waste every year, according to ABC News. That covers packaging across skincare and makeup specifically.
Real talk.
None of these numbers come from one dramatic event. They come from ordinary, repeated bathroom habits, multiplied by everyone doing the same thing at roughly the same pace.
Which is also exactly why one swap, repeated, adds up the same way in the other direction.