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Getting your teeth fixed can be an environmental hazard
Summary
This commentary discusses the environmental hazard of discarded dental aligners, which end up in landfills and take decades to decompose, releasing microplastics in the process. The author calls for aligner manufacturers and dental practitioners to adopt take-back and recycling programs to reduce the contribution of orthodontic plastic waste to the global microplastic burden.
Discarded aligners often end up in landfills where they take decades to decompose, releasing microplastics into the environment. This needs to change. Microplastics have been declared a global emergency thanks to their ubiquitous presence in all aspects of life: air, soil, food and now, human organs. These particles can enter the human body by swallowing […]
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