Encourage Your Dental Patients To Help Save The Planet

3 Ways You Can Encourage Your Dental Patients To Help Save The Planet

With the ever-increasing global focus on green issues, dentistry has had to take stock, not just as an industry but at a dental practice level, of how much each dentist does or does not contribute to the harm inflicted upon the environment. While dentistry might not be considered a ‘heavy industry’, it certainly does not qualify as a profession whose green credentials have always been up to the mark.

Dentists tell us several processes, procedures, and ways of working within the dental field have been pinpointed as especially harmful to the environment. These include the amount of water used and wasted during appointments, the amount of mercury discarded within amalgam, and the harmful chemicals in traditional X-ray photography and development.

Thankfully, as an industry, dentists have realised that they have a huge part to play in reducing the number of processes and procedures that cause harm to the environment. As such, new treatments, apparatus, and processes are being introduced. The move to switch dentistry’s carbon footprint will not happen overnight, but the positive impact will be cumulative as each dental practice amends its day-to-day procedures.

One point that might not immediately spring to mind about how a dentist can improve their green credentials is that it is not just about what they do personally. They can also educate their patients on how they can help. Oral health and hygiene is not something that only occurs within the confines of the dental practice, and much of what patients do at home has implications for the environment.

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February 16, 2021