I have had this great idea for ages and I just realised this blog would be just perfect channel to get it out in the open.
I am into recycling and saving our planet in my personal life and because of this it is sometimes hard to work in a profession that produces lots of waste every day. Waste that we do not sort in any way (well clinical waste and domestic waste in UK but that’s not really sorting in the matter of recycling).
It has forced me to think that could dentistry be more sustainable?
Don’t be alarmed. I’m not going to suggest that we start to wash our gloves and saliva ejectors.
Expensive Business
Materials and equipment are very expensive in dentistry. Sometimes we order equipment that for one reason or another lays in the storage shelf nearly unused.
Sometimes we use only half a pack of costly composite filling material before we order a new one – the one that just came out in the market and is supposed to be better than the previous ones. The old half-a-pack composite filling material stays in the shelf until it is out of date and is thrown away eventually.
That is just one example. Let me tell you another one. Somebody in my current workplace thought it would be a good idea to buy the EMS Air-Flow S1 for soda whitening. Then she changed jobs and the brand new Air-Flow was forgotten. The two hygienists and four dentists in the practice did not think there was any benefit of using the Air-Flow. Money wasted.
One more. The root canal files. Our practice has so many unused packages of root canal files that no-one uses. Perhaps because of the Wave-One that is easier and more user-friendly than traditional files. But I’m sure there is somebody that still uses these traditional files?
THE Grand Idea
Could these unwanted materials and equipments be sold second-hand to the practises who need them? The price would be lower of course than when buying new ones.
I think they could. It would need a website for sure. Some kind of dental online flea-market. And if it was global it would be even better. But then again it’s not about saving our planet because of the carbon footprint. So let’s do it locally so that we will maintain our humble idea of recycling (but I still want my share of the advertisement income the website will have because of its popularity).
Dental Revelations 