Here’s Why Our Blackburn Dental Clinic is an Environment-Friendly Clinic

Whitehorse Dental in Blackburn is an environment-friendly dental clinic. We strive to lessen the environmental impacts of our dentistry practice and reduce our footprint on our fragile environment.

Often, when choosing a dental clinic, potential patients don’t think about the environment. We think you should. The environmental factors in dentistry are significant, and there are many impacts a single dental clinic can have, not only locally but also globally.

We use sustainable instruments

Many dental practices use single-use instruments for procedures. We don’t. Instead, at Whitehorse Dental, we do it the old-fashioned way: we take the time to properly sterilise our instruments between procedures. We use steel or high-quality resin instruments whenever possible. The result is less environmental risk and less waste.

We use less plastic

Traditionally dental clinics often use multiple plastic chair coverings because they are easy to change between patients. We don’t. We normally run more dental surgeries than we need so that the dentist can move from chair to chair.  That way after the first patient is done, the second patient is brought into another room.  The assistant then has ample time to properly clean and wipe down all the surfaces in the room as there is no next patient immediately waiting to use the room.   We partner with CMA ecocycle to dispose of or recycle items correctly.

At Whitehorse Dental, we recycle everything we can, from batteriesto old lightbulbs. Why is this important?

For 150 years, amalgams were the only filling available for dental caries. Mercury (Hg), a toxic substance, binds the metals in dental amalgam together. When amalgam fillings are replaced, the waste must go somewhere, including wastewater, the ocean, soil, and the air. Ordinarily, extracted and lost teeth with amalgam fillings and the materials used during the extraction process are contaminated with mercury and are incinerated, releasing toxins into the atmosphere.

Instead, all of our amalgam waste is collected and properly disposed of by CMA Ecocycle, Australia’s largest recycler of mercury. This keeps mercury and its significant environmental risks out of our wastewater, food chain, soil, and landfills.  CMA Ecocycle also recycle any old batteries or spent light bulbs for us.  If you have household batteries or light bulbs, please feel free to bring them into the practice so we can have them sent to the CMA Ecocycle recycling facility.

We also participate in Colgate® and TerraCycle’s free oral care product packaging recycling program. You can drop off your used toothpaste tubes and caps, caps, electric toothbrush heads, and floss containers at our clinic free of charge.

Benefits of an environment-friendly dental clinic

The benefits of an environment-friendly dental practice are many. Traditional dental clinics discharge a tremendous amount of waste materials. Besides amalgams and plastics, waste includes silver, lead, glass, cotton wool, gauze, and needles. Consider this: every person’s oral cavity is full of microbes, bacteria, and sometimes viruses that can spread disease. As a result, dental waste materials are usually contaminated with blood and other body fluids.

Australia ratified the U.N.’s Minamata Convention on Mercury on 7 December 2021. The Convention calls for a slow-down on the use of dental amalgams and other human-caused emissions of mercury. Be sure your dental clinic complies with this international document for environmental health.

Creates less radiation and other harmful chemicals

Going to an eco-friendly dentist reduces your radiation exposure. That’s because, at Whitehorse Dental, we take small digital x-rays digitally. This lets us see the results immediately and exposes you to much less radiation.

An additional benefit of digital X rays is that we no longer need to use corrosive fixer and developer solution to develop analogue X rays.  

Less chemical contamination and fewer disposables

Using fewer harmful chemicals in a dental practice takes work and skill. So does intentionally using less single-use plastics.  It’s not uncommon for other practices to throw away 2 large garbage bags of plastic per day for every dental room used.  That means if the practice runs 4 dental chairs, that’s 8 large bags of plastic going to landfill every day. .Whitehorse Dental is proud that by our attention to being environmentally friendly, we save the equivalent of twenty large laundry bags’ worth of plastics going into the landfill every week. Another way we reduce waste is by using high-quality hand towels in our bathrooms. We launder and sanitise them rather than using paper towels. 

Contact your environment-friendly Blackburn dental clinic today

If you want to have a dental clinic making a positive environmental impact, look no further. Whitehorse Dental has a commitment to our planet. It’s why we recycle, avoid using single-use plastics, and use sustainable instruments. Contact us and make your appointment today.