Our Practice is committed to continuous improvement, especially when it comes to looking after our planet and local area. We are always looking for new ways to help reduce waste and encourage more eco-conscious and sustainable decisions and practices.
Our goal is to minimise the adverse effects our Practice has on the environment and to help conserve natural resources.
Did you know?
You can recycle your toothbrushes and other dental plastics via our Terracycle scheme? Patients and non-patients alike can pop in and drop off your dental waste. “All waste collected as part of The Philips Dental Care Recycling Programme is shipped to the TerraCycle® warehouse, where it is separated by polymer type and cleaned (if necessary). The material is then extruded into plastic pellets, creating new recycled products from your dental care products.”
Items we can accept:
- Electric toothbrush heads and covers
- Flossing sticks and interdental brushes
- Electric flosser nozzles
- Dental floss containers
- Manual toothbrushes
Here are just some examples of steps we have taken to improve our sustainability as a Practice:
We are actively promoting recycling of things like paper, plastic, printer ink cartridges, pens, batteries, coffee pods, toothbrushes and more.
We encourage healthy eating, exercise and volunteering amongst staff members, with our staff having already participated in a bring and share ‘sustainable lunch’, and our staff being involved with volunteering such as with Dentaid.
We are trying to be mindful of the water that we use and only use as much as is necessary, with signs as reminders.
We have introduced a new way of signing consent forms online to reduce the amount of paper we use and then shred. Shredded paper is much harder to recycle than sheets of paper.
Our website actively promotes the use of public transport to our patients with information on how to reach us by bus and a journey planner link. There is also information about bicycle storage for those wishing to travel by bicycle.
We have a dedicated Sustainability Champion, Lucy, who helps research alternative practices and products. She also updates all our staff regularly via a digital Sustainability Newsletter.
We aim to send all our correspondence electronically unless necessary via emails and text messages, such as staff pay slips and patient appointment reminders.
We use paper cups, rather than plastic.
We have had staff training on Sustainability, with time for discussion about things we can do to improve, with steps already being taken to action these. We regularly review green issues in our Practice team meetings.
We have been participating in the Green Impact Dentistry Sustainability Programme, and will continue to do so. “Green Impact is a sustainability accreditation scheme… It’s an international programme, recognised by UNESCO as a global laureate for education for sustainable development. It runs in many different sectors, including dentistry. Through Green Impact, dental practices can access support, and can choose to work towards a bronze, silver or gold level accreditation, evidencing their commitment to being a responsible healthcare business.”
Our upcoming goals, in line with CQC recommendations are:
Further staff training and awareness about how climate change is a significant threat to the health of people.
Continued steps to empower our staff to understand sustainable healthcare and how to reduce environmental impact.
Encourage our team to work towards our shared goal of preventative, high quality, low carbon care which has health benefits for staff and the population we serve.
Develop our plans and take action to ensure the setting in which we provide services are as low carbon as possible, including to ensure energy efficiency, and use renewable energy sources where possible.
Continue to take active steps towards ensuring the principles of net zero care are embedded in planning and delivery of care. Low carbon care is resource efficient and supports care to be delivered in the right place at the right time.
Share Your Ideas: Help Us Enhance Our Sustainability Efforts
We welcome feedback and ideas about how we can improve our sustainability practices. Please contact our team via email [email protected] or by phone 01142661265 to discuss.