Dental office infection control and sterilization processes can be a major source of pollution and waste in the traditional dental practice.
Chemicals used in infection control and sterilization processes in the dental office can be quite dangerous.
In the eco-friendly practice:
- Steam sterilization replaces chemical-based sterilization
- Toxic cold-sterilization methods are eliminated
- Eco-friendly disinfectants maintain a hospital-grade environment in the operatory.
These eco-friendly options have the added benefit of eliminating that “dental office smell” that triggers “that dental office anxiety!”
The typical dental office trashes a half-dozen or more lawn-size garbage bags every day!
Take a look at this video, showing one month of dental office waste collected from a real dental practice, also shown to the left. Much of this waste consists of single-use disposable barriers and sterilization items.
These plastic-containing products are made from scarce and expensive oil, are only used for about an hour, and end up in our landfill, where they never decompose.
In the US alone, 1.7 billion sterilization pouches and 680 million patient barriers are dumped by dental practices every year.
Eco-Friendly Dental Offices:
- Choose cloth lab coats
- Use re-usable cloth patient barriers
- Implement FDA-registered re-usable pouches and wraps for sterilization
- Reduce the use of disposables in all dental office processes
See the study that is the foundation of our estimates on dental office waste.