In 2025, independent lab testing found that roughly 90% of the toothpastes it examined contained detectable lead. The brands implicated were not fringe products, including household names like Crest, Colgate, Sensodyne, and Tom’s of Maine, along with dozens of formulas marketed for children and many sold as “natural” or “green.”

That headline rattled a lot of medicine cabinets, and it deserves a careful look rather than a panic. Toothpaste is, after all, a cleaner we put in our mouths twice a day for a lifetime. Knowing what’s in it, what the science says about the risk, and which ingredients raise legitimate environmental and health questions is worth a few minutes. Here’s where the evidence stands now.

Toothpaste, a History

The history of oral hygiene dates back nearly 7,000 years to an abrasive powder made from materials like eggshells, pumice stone, or ox hoof ashes. Egyptians would wet the powder and rub it on their teeth. Later the Romans and Chinese sought to improve the flavor of their abrasive powders with herbal ingredients like mint and ginseng. Not much changed until the 1800s, when inventors added soap and chalk to the powder.

The first toothpaste tube, which was made of lead, was introduced in the 1890s. (Yes, lead has a long and unfortunate history with this product.) It was the first of many changes that followed in the 20th century, as a host of new chemicals both increased the effectiveness and the environmental and health risks of toothpaste. In 1955, Procter and Gamble released the first stannous fluoride cavity-preventing toothpaste. Fluoride remains the most common active ingredient in toothpaste today.

Personal care products of all kinds were largely homemade until the last century, and that is still an option today. You can make your own toothpaste and mouthwash at home using simple ingredients you already have in your kitchen. Talk to your dentist before giving up fluoride, though, which is proven to deter cavities.

The Heavy Metals Question

The 2025 lead findings came from Lead Safe Mama, a consumer-advocacy operation run by lead-poisoning-prevention activist Tamara Rubin. Its program crowdfunds samples and sends them to an independent, third-party lab. Across roughly 51 toothpastes and a few tooth powders, about 90% tested positive for lead, 65% for arsenic, just under half for mercury, and about a third for cadmium. All four are toxic; lead and arsenic are particularly concerning for children’s developing brains.

That sounds alarming, and the contamination is real. But context matters enormously here.

Where the metals come from

The contamination appears to be unintentional, traced to naturally sourced ingredients that carry trace metals when they aren’t purified: hydroxyapatite (often derived from animal bone or mineral sources), calcium carbonate (an abrasive), and especially bentonite clay, a natural “detoxifying” ingredient that was a recurring culprit in the highest-contamination products.

Rubin’s ingredient testing found the raw materials themselves were contaminated, which points to a supply-chain and sourcing problem rather than one or more bad actors.

The regulatory gap

None of the tested products exceeded the FDA’s federal limit for lead in toothpaste, which is 10,000 parts per billion (ppb) for fluoride-free pastes and 20,000 ppb for fluoride pastes. However, those thresholds are substantially higher than the limits set for food. By comparison, California caps lead in baby food at 6 ppb, and the proposed federal Baby Food Safety Act would set 10 ppb, neither of which covers toothpaste. Most tested pastes cleared the baby-food bar by a wide margin but sit far below the cosmetic ceiling.

Washington State has moved to close part of that gap. Its Toxic-Free Cosmetics Act set a 1,000 ppb lead limit for cosmetics, including toothpaste. A handful of products in the testing exceeded it, with the worst offender, a brand called Primal, containing 7,800 ppb. Companies have been given time to come into compliance.

What an independent risk assessment found

After the headlines, toxicologists reviewed the Lead Safe Mama results. A peer-reviewed screening-level risk assessment published in Public Health Toxicology in 2025 used Lead Safe Mama’s own data and deliberately conservative assumptions, including the worst-case scenario that a child swallows a full smear of toothpaste at every brushing. The conclusion: for cadmium and mercury, exposures fell below health-guidance values across the board. For lead and arsenic, on the other hand, a handful of products exceeded the most protective guidance levels under heavy-use scenarios, but the doses were still several times to several orders of magnitude lower than what children and adults already get from food, household dust, and soil.

The researchers’ assessment concluded that the heavy metals detected “are not anticipated to increase health risk” through typical use, and that a normal pea-sized amount is safe. That doesn’t make the contamination acceptable; no level of lead exposure is considered safe, and unnecessary exposure is still worth avoiding. But it reframes the story from “your toothpaste is poisoning you” to “your toothpaste is one more avoidable trace source in a world that has too many.”

A small set of products came back as free of all four metals, proving cleaner sourcing is achievable. They included Dr. Brown’s Baby Toothpaste, Spry Kids’ tooth gel, Orajel Training Toothpaste, and Miessence. (Earth911 will receive a small fee if you make a purchase through these links.) As of mid-2025, Lead Safe Mama listed seven products meeting its non-detect threshold.

Other Ingredients Worth Watching

Heavy metals aren’t the only thing in the tube that draws scrutiny. A few others come up repeatedly:

• Titanium dioxide. This white pigment (listed as CI 77891) does nothing for your teeth; it’s purely cosmetic, there to make the paste look bright white. The EU banned it as a food additive in 2022 over genotoxicity concerns, and the EU’s Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety has said a mutagenic effect from oral cosmetic use can’t be ruled out. It remains legal in toothpaste in both the EU and the US, and the FDA still permits it, but many manufacturers are dropping it voluntarily. Since it has no functional benefit, it’s an easy one to skip.
• Sulfates (SLS). Sodium lauryl sulfate, the foaming agent, is not linked to cancer despite a persistent internet rumor. It can be a skin and tissue irritant for sensitive people and has been associated with canker sores. SLS-free options are widely available if you’re prone to either.
• The sodium pyrophosphate used to prevent tartar can pass through wastewater treatment and feed algal blooms and create dead zones in waterways. Phosphates aren’t in every paste, and some mainstream brands offer phosphate-free formulas.

The Fluoride Debate Got Louder

Fluoride remains the most studied and most effective cavity-preventing ingredient in toothpaste, and major dental and pediatric organizations continue to recommend it. But the politics around it shifted sharply in 2025.

In May 2025, the FDA began action to pull ingestible fluoride supplements (drops and tablets that are swallowed) for children off the market, citing concerns about the gut microbiome and finalizing the move that October. It’s important to read what that action covers: the FDA explicitly distinguished swallowed supplements from topical fluoride in toothpaste and rinses, which you spit out and which it did not move against. The American Academy of Pediatrics and American Dental Association both pushed back hard, warning the broader anti-fluoride momentum could drive up tooth decay.

The underlying science is genuinely unsettled at the edges. A 2025 JAMA Pediatrics meta-analysis found an inverse association between fluoride exposure and children’s IQ, but mostly at exposure levels well above US water-fluoridation concentrations, with the dose-response uncertain at lower levels. The takeaway for toothpaste users is narrow: spitting out a topical fluoride paste is a different exposure than swallowing a concentrated supplement, and the evidence against topical use remains thin. If your water is already fluoridated and you’d rather avoid it, that’s a reasonable personal choice, and there’s now a better-supported alternative than there used to be.

Hydroxyapatite: The Fluoride Alternative That’s Earning Its Claims

Nano-hydroxyapatite is a synthetic version of the mineral that makes up tooth enamel, and has moved from niche fluoride alternative to credible option. A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis in the Journal of Dentistry concluded that hydroxyapatite toothpaste can be an effective alternative to fluoride for preventing caries progression and remineralizing early lesions, with the added pitch of strong biocompatibility. A 2025 narrative review of recent clinical trials reached a similar conclusion, calling it a safe and effective option, especially for children or anyone at risk of fluoride overexposure, with possible added benefits for tooth sensitivity.

While the data is piling up fast, research on hydroxyapatite is earlier and thinner than fluoride’s decades of data, and some trials are industry-funded. Second — and this is the irony — hydroxyapatite is one of the ingredients flagged as a potential heavy-metals vector when it’s not well purified. The lesson isn’t to avoid it; it’s to favor brands that publish third-party purity testing.

Animal Welfare

It may surprise you that some toothpastes contain animal products. Propolis is sourced from bees. Unless specified otherwise, calcium phosphate and glycerin can be derived from animal bone and fat. If you’d rather not brush with animal byproducts, look for vegan-certified products.

Even toothpastes without animal ingredients may have been tested on animals. To avoid those, look for Leaping Bunny certified products. Vegan and cruelty-free aren’t the same thing, so a product can carry one certification without the other.

Packaging

Toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes can be recycled, but it’s not as simple as tossing them in the curbside bin. Most tubes are multi-layer plastic that local programs can’t process. That’s slowly changing: Tom’s of Maine, Colgate (though Bloomberg found the company’s recyclability claims aren’t well supported), and other brands are transitioning to recyclable plastic tubes.

Tube-free products sidestep the packaging problem entirely. Toothpaste tablets and chewables come in glass or metal-tin packaging, tooth powders ship in tins or jars, and some brands now use aluminum pods.

Sorting the Concerns by How Much They Matter

Not every flagged ingredient carries the same weight. Here’s a plain-language triage based on current evidence:

What You Can Do

You don’t need to throw out your toothpaste. A few practical moves address the real concerns without overcorrecting for the overblown ones:

• Use a pea-sized amount. It’s the single most effective step for cutting any ingredient exposure. The risk assessment found it erases most heavy-metal concerns, and it make the tube last longer, which reduces waste.
• Supervise young kids’ brushing. Children swallow more toothpaste than adults, so they’re the most relevant group for any ingestion concern. Use a rice-grain smear for under-3s and a pea for older kids.
• Favor transparency. Choose brands that publish third-party testing for heavy-metal purity, especially if your paste contains hydroxyapatite, calcium carbonate, or bentonite clay.
• Skip the purely cosmetic stuff. Titanium dioxide adds whiteness and nothing else. Check the ingredient list for “CI 77891” and pick a formula without it.
• Keep brushing with an effective active. Fluoride (spit it out) or clinically supported hydroxyapatite both prevent cavities. Don’t trade a proven benefit for an unproven fear.
• Ditch the tube where you can. Tablets, powders, and tinned formats avoid multi-layer plastic.
• Don’t run the tap. Leaving the water running while you brush can waste up to four gallons of fresh water each time, even with a low-flow faucet.

Toothpaste is cleaner than the scariest headlines suggest and messier than the industry would like to admit. The contamination is real, the regulatory ceiling is too high, and the fixes are simple. Brush well, use less, read the label, and don’t let the noise talk you out of caring for your teeth.

Related Reading

• Toothpaste Ingredients To Avoid
• How To Make Your Own Toothpaste
• Recycling Toothbrushes and Toothpaste Tubes
• Vegan and Cruelty-Free Certifications, Explained

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Gemma Alexander on January 3, 2022, and was substantially updated in June 2026, when we added the 2025 findings on heavy-metal contamination, the FDA’s fluoride-supplement action, titanium dioxide regulation, and clinical evidence on hydroxyapatite.

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https://earth911.com/health/how-clean-is-your-toothpaste/

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The raw material for a $2 trillion circular economy is already flowing through recycling facilities. But how do we capture and use it? Rebecca Hu-Thrams, co-founder and CEO of Glacier, is deploying AI-powered robotic sorters at material recovery facilities (MRFs) across the country, processing recycling for one in 10 Americans. Her robots use computer vision trained on more than 3 billion images of waste to identify and sort over 70 different materials—picking 45 items per minute, 24/7, in conditions that would exhaust or injure human workers. As much as 80% of what Americans put in blue bins never gets recycled. The culprit is outdated technology at MRFs, the vast sorting operations struggling with a labor crisis so severe that facilities often refill the same sorting job five times a year. The work is dangerous, with injury rates twice that of construction. Rebecca, a first-generation American who grew up washing margarine tubs for reuse, saw an opportunity to apply cutting-edge technology to what she calls “the most demented form of manufacturing on the planet.” The results are tangible. At oneDetroit MRF, an AI camera on a residue line revealed the facility was losing massive amounts of PET bottles to landfill, material they suspected was slipping through but had never quantified. By adding a single sorter based on that data, they achieved a two-thirds drop in PET sent to landfill and earned $138,000 in additional annual revenue.

But Glacier’s robots do more than sort. They create an intelligence layer for the circular economy, generating data about what’s actually in the waste stream—down to specific brands and packaging designs. Amazon, which has invested in Glacier through its Climate Pledge fund, is using this data to understand what design features make packaging easier or harder for AI to detect, moving from “technically recyclable” to “provably recyclable.” With extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws spreading across the U.S., this kind of brand-level accountability will become table stakes. Rebecca notes that EPR has improved recycling rates by over 40 percentage points in parts of Europe. Glacier’s vision is to transform recycling from a reactive cost center into advanced manufacturing, built on three pillars: a reliable data layer, consistent automation, and higher-quality feedstock. “MRF managers show up to work, turn on the lights, and hold their breath and wait to see what new, crazy things come down their conveyor lines,” she said. “What I hope is true for recycling in the coming years is that producers are making things designed to be really easy to recycle.”

We’re still in the early steps of a long recycling evolution, but the gap between where we are and a truly circular economy may close faster than the past 60 years of recycling’s progress would suggest. You can learn more about Glacier at endwaste.io.

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Editor’s Note: This episode originally aired on December 8, 2025.

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The biggest climate decision at your next cookout is not the grill you buy. It is what you put on the grates. A backyard charcoal barbecue for four people can release as much greenhouse gas as an 80-mile car drive; and most of that comes from the meat, not the fuel, according to researchers at the University of Sheffield’s Institute for Sustainable Food.

Grilling season is back, and a new grill is a chance to cut the emissions from summer entertaining. But the fuels are only part of the story, and the rankings have shifted since this guide first ran. The U.S. power grid has gotten markedly cleaner, which changes the case for electric grills. Before you head to the store, it helps to understand the carbon impact of charcoal, wood pellets, propane, natural gas, electricity, and solar — and where each one actually lands. And if you’re replacing an old grill, don’t forget to recycle the one you’re retiring.

Start With What’s on the Grates

Cook from scratch and you’re already ahead. Preparing a meal from whole ingredients rather than processed food can lower its global warming and human toxicity potential by up to 35%, according to a study in the Journal of Cleaner Production. That doesn’t make a barbecue carbon-free, though — and the single largest lever you control is protein.

The Sheffield team compared three grilled meals and found the gap is dramatic. A beef-heavy cookout was the most carbon-intensive option they measured, while swapping beef burgers for chicken cut the barbecue’s emissions by roughly a third, and a fully plant-based spread cut them by more than half. The lifecycle impact of the food, especially red meat, typically dwarfs the footprint of the fuel used to cook it. A burger’s beef carries far more embodied carbon than the propane needed to char it.

Put plainly: grilling more vegetables, chicken, or plant-based options is the highest-impact change most people can make at a cookout. The fuel decisions below matter — they’re just the second-biggest lever, not the first.

The Burning Truth About Fuels

Grilling is a science, as any grill master knows. A meal for four takes roughly 30 minutes to an hour on the grates, and different fuels need different lengths of time to reach cooking temperature. The estimates below assume about one hour of cooking to make dinner for four — your actual results will vary with the grill and fuel you use.

Charcoal: The Most Polluting Choice

Dinner for four needs about 300 square inches of grill space for meat, vegetables, and warming buns. Charcoal runs about 30 briquettes per 100 square inches, so you’ll need roughly 90 pieces. At an average briquette weight of about 0.8 ounces, that’s about 4.7 pounds of charcoal for the meal.

Charcoal carries two carbon costs: the embodied carbon of making the briquettes and the emissions from burning them. Manufacturing is the hidden problem. Charcoal is produced by heating wood in a low-oxygen kiln until moisture and volatile compounds cook off, leaving nearly pure carbon, and only about 20% to 35% of the original wood’s energy survives the process. The rest burns off during production. Estimates put the manufacturing footprint at roughly 3.5 to 7 pounds of CO2 per pound of charcoal, before you ever light the grill.

Burning the 90 briquettes for an hour adds about 21 pounds of CO2, plus roughly 0.79 pounds of carbon monoxide and 1.6 pounds of particulate matter. All told, a single charcoal cookout for four exceeds 28 pounds of CO2 along with other pollutants and is by far the most polluting way to grill. Eric Johnson’s lifecycle comparison in Environmental Impact Assessment Review reached a similar verdict: charcoal’s carbon footprint is roughly three times that of liquefied petroleum gas.

There’s a footprint upstream of your patio, too. Worldwide, woodfuel harvest, which includes wood used to make charcoal, accounts for about 30% of the estimated 2.1 billion tons of CO2 released annually by forest degradation across developing countries, according to research published in Carbon Balance and Management. In parts of Africa, charcoal production now rivals outright deforestation as a driver of forest loss. The wood in a U.S. bag of briquettes may be sourced differently, but the global picture is a reminder that “natural” charcoal is not the same as low-impact.

Wood Pellets: Second Place, by a Wide Margin

Wood pellets are a popular charcoal alternative, and some grillers treat them as a low-carbon, renewable fuel. Cooking on a 300-square-inch grill takes about two pounds of pellets.

Embodied carbon varies widely with the wood used, the manufacturing process, and how far the pellets travel. In general, a pound of pellets carries about 0.09 pounds of embodied carbon and produces about 1.8 pounds of CO2 when burned — putting our four-person dinner at roughly 3.78 pounds total. Because pellets burn cleaner than charcoal, the meal generates only a few grams of carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and nitrogen and sulfur compounds. Pellets are the second-worst option on this list, but at a fraction of charcoal’s impact.

The Lower Footprint of Cooking With Gas

Propane and natural gas grills carry a lower environmental impact than charcoal and pellets, mostly because they heat fast and switch off the moment you’re done. That control over cooking time makes a real difference — charcoal keeps throwing off heat and emissions long before the grates are ready and well after the food comes off. Gas also keeps far more of its energy: propane retains roughly 90% of its energy from wellhead to grill, against charcoal’s 20% to 35%.

A propane grill uses about a half pound of propane for the 30 minutes our four-person meal needs. Including the embodied carbon of producing and delivering the fuel, that session totals about 1.99 pounds of CO2.

Natural gas usually requires a gas line plumbed to the home, so propane is more convenient for many grillers. A 30-minute cook uses roughly 1.2 pounds of natural gas, for a footprint of about 1.73 pounds of CO2. One caveat worth naming: natural gas systems can leak methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than CO2 over the short term, which the combustion math above doesn’t capture.

Electric Grilling Has Quietly Become a Top Choice

For years the conventional wisdom held that electric grills were the dirtiest option, citing a 2003 Oak Ridge National Laboratory analysis from an era when coal dominated the power grid. That conclusion no longer holds, because the grid underneath it has changed.

In 2023, generating a kilowatt-hour of U.S. electricity produced about 0.81 pounds of CO2 on average, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration — down sharply from the coal-heavy mix of two decades ago, and still falling. The EPA’s emissions database shows grid carbon intensity dropping again by an average of about 3% from 2023 to 2024 as wind, solar, and natural gas displace coal.

Run the math on a modern electric grill, which draws roughly 1.5 to 1.8 kilowatts, and an hour of cooking on the average U.S. grid now produces somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.2 to 1.5 pounds of CO2. That puts it below propane on the typical grid — and well below charcoal — with one feature no fuel-burning grill offers: it gets cleaner every year on its own, as the grid decarbonizes, the same logic that drives heat pumps and electric vehicles. If your power comes from a cleaner-than-average source — rooftop solar, a green-power plan, or a state rich in hydro, wind, or nuclear — the number drops further still. Pair an electric grill with a solar generator and you approach a genuinely zero-carbon cookout.

The honest tradeoff is flavor and feel. Electric grills heat with coils or elements rather than open flame, so they don’t impart the same smoke, and purists notice. Cast-iron grates can deliver sear marks, and add-on smoking accessories help, but this is the option where the cooking experience differs most from a traditional grill.

Solar Cooking: Zero Fuel, Real Limits

Solar ovens use reflectors to concentrate sunlight on a sealed cooking chamber, making a meal with no fuel and no direct emissions. They excel at slow, moist, flavorful cooking — think baking and braising more than searing.

The limits are practical. It takes a genuinely sunny day to reach broiling or grilling temperatures, output drops with the light, and solar cookers don’t produce the signature grill lines many cooks prize. As a complement to another method — or for the right dish on the right afternoon — solar is unbeatable on carbon. As an everyday grill replacement for most households, it’s a harder sell than a clean-grid electric model.

The Carbon Impact of Grilling

A season of cooking 45 meals using each of the options we’ve reviewed will produce the following emissions:

• Charcoal: 1,260 lbs. of CO2, plus other pollutants
• Wood Pellets: 170 lbs. of CO2, plus some other pollutants
• Propane: 90 lbs. of CO2
• Natural Gas: 78 lbs. of CO2
• Solar: No CO2

Stretch these single-meal figures across a season of 45 cookouts and the differing environmental become starkly evident. The table below assumes the same four-person meal each time, cooked on the average U.S. grid for the electric estimate.

What You Can Do

If you’re buying a new grill

• Consider electric first. On today’s grid it beats propane, and it keeps improving as power generation cleans up, with no equipment swap required.
• If you want flame, choose gas over charcoal. Propane and natural gas heat fast and shut off instantly, cutting both fuel use and emissions.
• Recycle the grill you’re replacing rather than sending it to landfill. Check Earth911’s recycling locator for locations near you that accept grills, metal, or appliances.

If you’re keeping the grill you have

• Cook with the lid down to trap heat and burn less fuel per meal.
• Preheat for about 10 minutes instead of 20, and turn a gas grill off the moment the food is done.
• If you grill on charcoal, skip lighter fluid and use a chimney starter — a metal cylinder lit with a sheet of newspaper, usually under $20. Choose lump charcoal over briquettes, ideally from a brand that names its wood source, and light only as much as you need.

The change that beats all of the above

• Grill more vegetables, chicken, and plant-based options. Shifting even a few beef meals to chicken or veggies each season cuts more emissions than switching fuels does. The food is the bigger lever.
• Cook from scratch with whole ingredients to trim the lifecycle footprint of the meal itself.

The grilling choices you make this summer carry a long-term climate cost, or savings. Pick the cleaner fuel where you can, rethink what goes on the grates, and the backyard barbecue stays exactly as good while asking a lot less of the planet.

Related Reading

• Recycling Mystery: Barbecue Grills
• Solar Ovens Cook Food Almost Anywhere
• What Is Embodied Carbon?
• Recycling Mystery: Propane Tanks

Editor’s Note: Originally published on May 31, 2023, this article was substantially updated in June 2026.

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