Dentist Goes Green

YOUR DENTIST GOES GREEN

EARTH DAY 2010

part1

part2

Being green is not just for “tree huggers and vegans.” To celebrate the 40th annual Earth Day some dentists are riding “clean green machines.” At Dr. Larson’s dental office in Campbell California we are committed to helping you, the community, and the planet.
We’ve designed a dental practice that reflects our commitment to the well-being of our patients, staff and the environment. Through rigorous planning, careful construction and implementation, we’ve created a high-performance green facility that is a healthy, productive place to work; less costly to operate & maintain; and reduces our environmental footprint. Designed to safeguard the health of occupants and visitors, our office includes measures that are beneficial to you, our patients, our staff and community.

Elimination of Toxic Materials

Mercury-free since 1988 our office uses composite to fill cavities instead of amalgam. Often referred to as “silver fillings”, amalgam dental restorations consist of mercury, silver, tin, copper, and zinc. Mercury is a toxic heavy metal, and even small amounts can damage cells. Our staff has been trained to safely remove these fillings and replace them with composite fillings. Using advanced amalgam removal techniques such as; amalgam chunking, high speed evacuation, and rubber dam barriers we protect the patient, and our surroundings. Additionally our highly specialized oral evacuation system filters the toxic waste three times. Filtration ensures that we can properly recycle the hazardous materials while releasing clean water.
Our digital panoramic x-ray unit eliminates the need for film processing and exposes patients to 90% less radiation than a standard x-ray system. No chemical fixer or developers are used to obtain the radiographs we need. We use digital Intra-oral radiographs. They have the same advantages as the panoramic x-rays. Use of digital photography means no mailing film for processing, no printing images, and we can send them electronically, if needed.

Waste reduction

It starts before you even come into our office – Online registration forms – instead of printed paperwork. You fill out the form online and email or fax it to our office. You’re thinking, “A fax uses paper.” Well traditional fax machines do. However, we use an online service to convert all of our faxes into a digital photo that comes to our email. Your information and chart is computer based. We have been using this since 2001. We generate no paper within the offices’ internal workflow. Our paper usage is dramatically lower using this technology. Text messages and email replace 90 percent of our non–verbal communication with you. No more cards sent by post!
We use online marketing instead of The Yellow Pages. The Yellow Pages represent a huge burden on the environment. Making the paper, shipping, printing, distribution, and recycling the book are all eliminated.
For those few times when we must use paper, we choose recycled paper and eco–friendly inks and toner. Our waste is always sorted, we recycle everything we can.
Wherever possible, we autoclave our instruments, instead of choosing to use disposable instruments.  Disposables have to go somewhere. A landfill is where they eventually end up, so disposable instruments aren’t used if there’s a choice.

(more to come in part 2)

part 1

part 2

Doug Larson, DDS

42 West Campbell Avenue

Campbell, CA 95008

408.374.6160

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