Be Part of Dentistrys Green Future

By Ina Pockrass

Dentistry is first and foremost a healing profession. Were in this to help people
enjoy chewing and absorbing the nutrients in food, flash a winning smile and be
at ease kissing a loved one. Yet unbeknownst to most dentists, our practice
contributes significantly to the Earths heavy load. It doesnt have to be this way.
We must come to grips with the fact that the waste that leaves our practices
doesnt go away. We all inhabit this one little blue planet, and we must consider
future generations when we make choices for our dental practices and our lives.
By embracing abundant high technology and good old common sense, we can
be part of dentistrys clean, green and highly profitable future. Heres how:

Reduce Waste and Prevent Pollution

By reducing waste and pollution on the front end, there is less to deal with on the
back end. If youve converted to digital imaging, youve set up the foundation for
a high-tech, green dental practice, and you dont have to deal with the disposal of
lead foils and toxic x-ray fixer from conventional x-rays. While most dentists
delegate waste compliance to a team member, many dont realize that the dentist
remains personally responsible for proper hazardous waste disposal through the
life cycle of that waste. The best way to eliminate liability for toxic waste is to not
create it in the first place.
Statistics on the penetration of digital imaging in US dental offices are between
25 and 33%. Good, but that also means that between 66 and 75% of the 120,000
US dental offices still use traditional x-rays. These practices require disposal of
4.8 million lead foils and 28 million liters of x-ray fixer every year.
Interestingly, about the same percentages (between 25 and 33%) of dental
offices have installed amalgam separators. Ask the 50% of dentists who selfidentify as mercury-free, and youll find a large number dont have a separator
and believe they dont need one because they no longer place amalgam. Wrong.
Whether you put the material in or take it out, you should have a separator. The
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates at least 3.7 tons, or 7,400
pounds (annually), of dentist-generated, mercury-containing waste ends up
burdening our local wastewater treatment plants, is incinerated with other trash,

poisons our air or finds its way into fertilizer used to grow our food. The ADA is on
board with separators, having signed an agreement with the EPA supporting
separator use in every dental office generating amalgam waste.
Two more big contributors to dental office waste are single-use, disposable
patient barriers and sterilization methods. These might seem cheaper and safer
in the short run, but the opposite is true in the long run. Reusable cloth methods
have been used in this countrys best hospital operatory rooms for decades, costeffectively protecting practitioners and patients while keeping millions of pounds
of trash out of our overburdened landfills.
Dentistrys disposable methods account for a staggering amount of waste each
year: the dumping of 1.7 billion sterilization pouches and 680 million patient
barriers. The bulk of this trash comes from covering everything in reams of
plastic plastic that comes from scarce and ever-harder-to-find oil and barriers
that are thrown out after each patient. If youre still using disposable barriers,
take two minutes at the end of the day to examine the amount of trash your office
has to get rid of. The dental office of the future utilizes hospital-tested reusable
methods, combined with effective, planet-safe surface disinfectants, generating
about 90% less trash.

Save Energy, Water & Money

Conservation is a critical part of dentistrys green future. It is the mantra of green
dentistry because it extends the life of our precious resources and keeps more
money in our bank accounts. Many energy-saving modalities dont require you to
purchase anything; all you have to do is stop wasting the energy for which you
pay but dont use. The next time you are ready to leave your office, scan each
operatory and business area and look for those ubiquitous blinking lights
emanating from electrical equipment. Chances are there are computers, intraoral
cameras, televisions and lights left on when no one is in the office. By turning off
these items every time the office is closed, youll reduce your phantom load: the
energy drawn by an item that is plugged into the grid but not in use. Watch your
electric bill decrease!
An exciting development in dentistrys future is the recent introduction of energyand water-saving dental equipment. Take LED operatory lights, which can reduce
electrical energy consumption by 70%, eliminating the need for expensive
halogen bulbs and allowing for easier placement of composite restorations.

Several manufacturers have engineered waterless vacuum systems, which save

between 350 and 500 gallons of water per day, per dental office enough to fill
an average-size swimming pool throughout the course of the year. If every US
dental office installed one of these waterless systems, we would collectively
conserve as many as nine billion gallons of clean, drinkable water a year water
we are now literally pouring down the drain. Stop and think about how we take
water for granted, how dependent modern dentistry is on reliable access to clean
water and how one out of every six people on the planet already lives without
safe drinking water.
Now think about how green dentistry can put more green in your pocket. To get
the facts, the Eco-Dentistry Association retained a respected consulting firm,
Natural Logic, to analyze green dental innovations and determine whether each
costs or saves money, and the rate of return on investment.
The data showed that by incorporating toward green practices, dentists can
improve their own bottom lines by as much as $50,000 a year. Energy-efficient
lighting saves the average dental practice more than $600 a year on energy
expenses, while steam sterilizers save more than $800 a year, from both energy
and chemical purchase savings. Switching to cloth infection control and
sterilization methods can put as much as $2,300 in annual savings into the
dentists pocket. While digital imaging has a significant up-front cost, once
installed, it saves almost $9,000 a year, and you begin realizing return on
investment in just six months. Tooth-colored restorations increase practice
revenues by as much as $37,000 a year because the more technique-sensitive
materials command a higher billing rate.

Green Dentistry is High-Tech Dentistry

It was only about fifty years ago that dentistry was revolutionized by air turbinedriven handpieces and low-risk local anesthetics. Since then, the technology
revolution has escalated, with new innovations appearing every few years, not
every fifty. We know this trend will continue, and high-tech innovations will
continue to make the practice of dentistry more reliable, easier on practitioners
and more cost-effective.
It turns out that almost every high-tech innovation in dentistry also has
environmental benefits. Take CAD/CAM systems. Yes, there is the chair-time
advantage of single-visit restorations, but consider that single visits by patients

means travel to your office is reduced by half. Consider also that CAD/CAM
systems eliminate the need for disposable impression materials and the freight
and transportation impacts associated with sending restorations back and forth to
a lab.

Green Dentistry Is Wellness-Based Dentistry

Every branch of medicine is moving from a disease-based model to a wellnessbased model one that is centered upon prevention, early detection and less
invasive treatments. Dentistrys green future embraces this wellness-based
model because our profession is literally on the front lines of total body wellness.
We know now that a healthy mouth is the cornerstone of a healthy person.
Practicing wellness-based dentistry allows you to reach a burgeoning market of
dental consumers, specifically the 25 to 33% of Americans who are values-based
consumers using an environmental and wellness-based litmus test to guide their
purchases. In 2010, these consumers the majority of whom are women spent
nearly $300 billion on goods and services that matched their values. Tap into this
market and youll tap into people who become evangelists for your practice,
reducing external marketing costs and bringing high-quality patients more
willingly and frequently into your chair.

Conclusion
If you want your practice and our planet to thrive, its time to become part of
dentistrys clean, green and profitable future. Take your exceptional patient care
to the next level by getting your dental practice GreenDOC Certified, the dental
industrys only green certification program that analyzes everything from your
built environment to your daily administration to dental processes and materials.
The GreenDOC Certification Program provides a road map for implementing
over 180 green initiatives and allows you to achieve Bronze, Silver or Gold
Certification, based upon a points system.
The Eco-Dentistry Association can help you transform your practice and spread
the word about your planetary stewardship, helping you reach more patients.
There is no better time than today to start conserving precious resources and
reducing your environmental impact. The planet, your patients and your bottom
line will thank you.
Ina Pockrass is co-founder of the Eco-Dentistry Association.