August 26, 2026
Kyle Lin
After years of recycling and environmental consciousness, Merox turned to an old toothbrush, an engineering background, and new knowledge from UChicago’s MS in Environmental Science to create LOOP, a startup reimagining how people approach oral care.
Merox reaches behind her for a toothbrush; the plastic has been chipped, the handle is wearing away, and the brush head requires a pair of tweezers to remove. Normally, a toothbrush this worn would have been replaced years ago. Yet, this toothbrush has stayed with Merox both physically and mentally since 2018 when she first bought it in Italy.
Traditional toothbrushes are meant to be replaced every few months, which means discarding the whole item. Meanwhile, her toothbrush only needed the head to be replaced, ultimately reducing plastic waste. “The design isn’t great, but the product itself is mind-blowing,” said Merox. “Why am I the only one with this kind of toothbrush? Why isn’t this the norm?”
Somewhere in the back of her mind, that question remained, eventually driving her to pursue environmental studies. The question followed her home to Argentina, where she finished her degree in industrial engineering and later pursued a career with Mercado Libre, Latin America’s largest e-commerce and fintech platform, as an industrial engineer and product manager building products from scratch.
Eventually, the question brought her to a third continent, North America, as she enrolled in the University of Chicago’s newly established MS in Environmental Science program. It was here that LOOP was born, a startup developing reusable oral care products designed to reduce plastic waste.
“I’ve always wanted to do something related to the environment. I’ve been recycling at my place in Argentina since I was 15; I implemented it at home and convinced my family to do it. I even started taking us to beach clean-up events,” said Merox. It was only when she learned about UChicago’s Master’s in Environmental Science that she saw an opportunity to build on her passion and understand the broader environmental questions she wanted to address.
“I was really looking forward to a career path change,” Merox said. “I felt that this was the right transition — doing this one-year program first to get to know more of the ecosystem, what was going on in the environment, what the technologies and innovations were, where the main concerns were, what was going on with climate change.”
Rather than focusing on a single aspect of environmental science, the curriculum drew on faculty and courses from across the University, allowing students to examine environmental challenges through scientific, technological, economic, and policy perspectives. Over the course of the year, she took classes ranging from climate adaptation and environmental investing to geographic information systems and urbanization.
“I'm still surprised by how much I’ve learned in just three quarters,” she said. “It feels surreal.”
Despite the influx of new knowledge, one class in particular stood out to Merox: Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation. There she was introduced to the scientific evidence behind climate change through an evaluative lens where she had to deep-dive into environmental claims to gain a greater understanding of current challenges as well as perspectives. Merox found her underlying assumptions challenged as the course emphasized understanding the quality of available evidence, recognizing uncertainty, and evaluating the role of new technologies.
“These courses allow you to gain perspective from a lot of different angles, and that really helps to understand the context of the environmental world better,” said Merox. “I'd always related cities to being the most unfriendly to the environment, but one of the things we learned in the course is that it’s actually a very efficient way of living.”
These classes culminated in a realization: climate change issues aren’t isolated; instead, they are interconnected much like cities are. There are a variety of climate issues that lead to a sense of hopelessness, but simultaneously there are solutions being implemented for those issues that seem hopeful. The most critical climate issues can only be understood in that contradiction as Merox found herself assessing climate change through models, data, emerging technologies, human population, and logistics.
“I've always wanted to build something,” she said. “I just didn't know where to start.”
Now Merox had the skills of an entrepreneur from building products from scratch, engineering experience, and a new environmental framework. Her mind drifted back to her toothbrush from Italy. “Every single day we’re using an object that’s made to be discarded,” thought Merox.
Plastic toothbrushes are one of the most commonly discarded personal care products, with billions thrown away each year. Most combine several materials that make recycling difficult, meaning the vast majority end up in landfills. These issues are difficult to address at scale, so instead Merox needed to reimagine the toothbrush.
To turn her notion into something tangible, Merox attended workshops through the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation before participating in Chicago Startup Weekend, a three-day competition where participants pitch ideas, build teams, and develop new ventures. Merox refined the concept, gathered feedback, and developed the first version of a sustainable toothbrush.
Merox’s innovation allows users to keep a reusable aluminum handle while replacing a 3-in-1 head system (brush, flosser, and tongue scraper) — a Swiss army knife for your bathroom. The design reduces the amount of plastic used over the product’s lifetime while the subscription model provides a way for each user to exchange brush heads as needed. To keep the product sustainable, it also needed to be something users wanted to keep — something beautiful to liven up the bathroom ecosystem.
“We believe sustainable habits don’t need to be a sacrifice,” said Merox. “You can build a beautiful object, creating a type of relationship with that object that doesn’t feel disposable. It becomes something people actually want to use.”
The project earned first place, validating an idea she had been thinking about for years. Soon afterward, her start up, LOOP — named after the idea of closing the loop of plastic toothbrush waste through recycling — was accepted into the Polsky Summer Accelerator, where Merox continues to receive mentorship while developing the company. She hired two UChicago undergraduate interns, partnered with an industrial designer, and began refining prototypes.
As LOOP prepares for launch, Merox continues to draw on the perspective she received from the Environmental Science master’s program. The toothbrush has become more personal with engravings, more sustainable with a new shipping model, and higher quality with better materials. Sustainability requires large-scale change, and the program gave her the perspective that those changes must start with adjusting the everyday habits of individuals.
To connect and learn more about her work, visit Merox’s profile on LinkedIn.