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DO GOOD: Green Dentistry: How to Make Your Practice Environmentally Sound by Ina Pockrass

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We've all seen images of polar bears balancing on retreating sea ice, biodiverse rain forests reduced to barren land, and mountains of trash clogging our oceans, but what does this have to do with your dental practice? The good news is that there are many concrete steps you and your team can take to lighten your environmental footprint right now, and it's easier than you might think. Remember, you don't have to do it all. Start where you are and do something.

Reducing waste and pollution
Complying with regulations may be a dentist's least favorite thing, but eliminating toxic waste and pollutants can make compliance easier and make the office more environmentally sound.

Consider indoor air quality, for instance. Your patients are in your office for an hour or two every six months, but you and your team are there every day: what you're breathing matters. Therefore, switch to a surface disinfectant that is nontoxic for the dental team. Take a moment in your next staff meeting to review the material-safety data sheet for your surface disinfectant and you might be surprised to learn that some brands can cause skin burns and irreversible eye damage, and shouldn't be inhaled.
    There is an array of other easily implemented options to make the office greener. The following suggestions can all help.
  1. Bring in living plants and you'll be adding nature's air purifiers. Great examples include garden mums, spider plants and dracaena. Go to http://greatist.com/connect/houseplants-that-clean-air for more ideas.
  2. Recycle or donate old hand instruments instead of trashing them (sterilized, of course). Repurpose your old instruments through Paradise Dental Technologies' Earthcare Program. Once reconditioned, many of these instruments will find new life at nonprofit organizations around the world; the rest will be recycled. An added bonus: you'll receive a free PDT curette or scaler for every 12 instruments you send. Go to http://pdtdental.com/earthcare/ for more information.
  3. You can clean water lines with nontoxic enzymatic cleaners rather than chlorine or bleach-based cleaners (which can release mercury vapors into your office).
  4. Just say no to magazines and fliers if they go unread in your practice. Check out Ecocycle.org/junkmail to request that your office stop receiving junk mail and useless phone books.
  5. Install and properly maintain an amalgam separator. This is the most important pollution-preventing step a dental office can take. Not sure if you have a separator? Open your mechanical closet and look for a device attached to your vacuum system. If you don't have one, and even if your office only removes old amalgam, talk to your supply rep and put one in. It costs less than the average crown, and you'll be diverting as much as three pounds of mercury-containing waste each year, which keeps this toxic material out of local waterways.


Saving energy, water and money
Remember, you don't pay for energy you don't use, so make sure everything with an “off" switch is turned off at night, and especially before vacations. Using power strips that turn off multiple pieces of equipment at once makes saving energy even easier.

Water shortages and droughts are quickly becoming reality for more than 35 states in the United States. Educating patients to turn off the water when they brush saves an average of 90 glasses of clean, drinkable water every day. Make this part of your hygiene team's brushing instructions and your patients will know you're partnering with them for a better tomorrow. If you own the building in which your dental office is located, consider adding solar panels, and literally take yourself off the grid. Several states and localities offer generous tax incentives, defraying much of the the cost of solar installations.

Many people erroneously believe that going green means spending more green, but a 2008 study concludes that a typical dental office can improve its bottom line by as much as $50,000 a year by incorporating environmental initiatives.

Switch to glass or ceramic rinse and swish cups that can be washed and reused, and save almost $200 a year. Already running a completely digital office with software-based patient charting, billing and X-rays? Your office is saving $8,769 a year, and that includes the cost of buying and running the computers. Put in energy-efficient fluorescent lighting and you'll save $600 every year. Haven't migrated to steam sterilization? You're spending $800 a year on chemicals.

Going high-tech
It turns out the high-tech dental office is also the greenest dental office. When people ask, “What's green dentistry?" we say it means digital everything. Using digital patient charting saves 20,000 sheets of paper a year—not to mention the staff time that's saved by never having to find the doctor's notes that were put in the wrong patient file.

Talk to your supply rep about online ordering and consolidating supplies for delivery. Your assistants will save time, and you'll save on shipping costs.

Considering in-office impressions or restoration milling? Prices are coming down as competition heats up, and using digital impression systems eliminates the waste and expense of gooey impression material. Best of all, your patients will love the convenience of one-visit restorations, and you'll lower your office's carbon footprint by reducing the number of times patients must travel to your office. Still sending paper newsletters and appointment reminders? In addition to the paper and printing costs, postage can be a significant line item in the profit-and-loss statement. Several digital options are available that allow for text-message and email confirmations, as well as real-time communication with patients. The options are paper-free.

If your practice still doesn't have a website or if the website hasn't been updated in more than five years, consider renewing your Web presence.

According to a Pew Research study, 72 percent of Americans searched online for health-related information. On top of that, one-third of consumers will leave a site if there is as little as a two-second delay in loading time. Investing in an up-to-date website is your practice's most effective marketing tool. And it's green!



Ina Pockrass is a leader of the green dentistry movement. A former intellectual-property trial attorney, Pockrass cocreated the country's first green dental office in 2003 in collaboration with her husband, Dr. Fred Pockrass, and cofounded the Eco-Dentistry Association in 2008. In 2010, Dental Products Report named her one of the top 25 women in dentistry.


Dentaltown Magazine
April 2024
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