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As a dentist you care primarily about the teeth of your patients. If you are an environmentally conscious person you might wonder what you can do about the health of the planet, though, and it turns out there’s a lot you can do for the planet’s health in your dental practice. If you want to turn your dental office into a healthy practice for your patients and the planet they live on, you only need to do a few simple things.

Consider What You Throw Away

Dentists’ offices produce a lot of waste, because they use disposable tips, bibs, and other items that have gone into the mouths of their patients. All of these (mostly plastic) pieces simply pile up in trash cans and later in landfills. While most of these items do need to be thrown away for sanitary reasons, you can make sure that they decompose and don’t result in more waste.

Investing in biodegradable bags, bibs, barriers and cups can go a long way to helping out the environment. Instead of simply throwing everything away and contributing to the problem, at least now you know that everything you are tossing into the garbage can is going to be recycled.

Go Paperless Where You Can

There’s also a lot of paper that goes around in the dentist office. You might mail dentist reminders, use paper for patient charting, billing, and radiography, and even use paper towels for cleanup. However, consider what type of paper you can live without. You could send reminders through email, go paperless and try to complete most of your tasks on a computer, and use electric air dryers or cloth towels to clean spills.

However, if you do have to use paper, try to recycle the paper or invest in paper that is biodegradable or paper that has already been recycled.

Give Out And Use Earth Friendly Dental Supplies

Your business can also fight pollution and other problems by using and giving out dental supplies that are earth friendly. These items are biodegradable, packaged properly, and are also much better for your teeth and mouth health. Stock up on these all natural oral care products and give them away to your patients, or take some home to use yourself!

Using things like Charcoal probiotic toothpaste, probiotics to support mouth health, and eco friendly toothbrushes can help your mouth health get stronger and can aid in keeping the planet safe as well. If your team is using these eco friendly dental products and is standing behind them, and can encourage their patients to do the same, then everyone can benefit.

Save Your Lights and Water

Switching things like toilets and sinks to their water saving versions, and lights to be both fluorescent and on a motion sensor or timer can be very helpful as well. They might be a bit of a hassle if you need to get everything replaced, but the benefits to the planet and your wallet will be much higher long term.

Your business can also invest in solar power or other forms of renewable energy to keep things going too, rather than relying on electricity all the time for power. Other things you can do for your business include installing appliances that are energy efficient and using smart power strips for electronics.

Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

Finally, incorporating the three R’s into your dental practice will help you in all areas of life. Make sure to recycle what you can, especially the big five: aluminum, glass, plastic, paper and steel. As well as anything else you can safely place in the bin. Reuse whatever you can safely or invest in reusable variants, and reduce your reliance on anything that harms the planet.

Being able to pinpoint areas where your business can reduce, reuse, and recycle can be very helpful for your dental practice. Plus, it might start carrying over into other areas of your life and you can continue to help the planet in that way.

Make Your Dental Practice Planet Friendly and Tell People About It

When you make your dentist’s office as friendly as it can possibly be to the enviroment, don’t hesitate to let your clients know. While the marketing value isn’t the only reason you should be doing this, it can help your customers better trust you as a dentist and keep on coming back to your office.

People are getting more and more into going green, and knowing that you can tap into that while also making the environment better for yourself is a good idea.