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Green Dentistry: Sustainable Practices and Materials for a Healthier Planet
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This review examines sustainable practices in dentistry, highlighting how adoption of biodegradable materials, digital technologies like CAD/CAM and teledentistry, reduced single-use plastics, and energy-efficient clinic design can substantially lower the environmental footprint of dental care without compromising patient outcomes.
Climate change and environmental degradation have heightened the urgency for sustainable practices across healthcare sectors, including dentistry. Green dentistry, also known as eco-friendly dentistry, aims to integrate dental care with principles of sustainability by utilising resources responsibly, reducing waste, employing eco-friendly materials, and designing clinics with an environmentally conscious approach. This narrative review examines the key domains of sustainable dental practice, including the adoption of bio-based and biodegradable dental materials, low-carbon ceramics and composites, and innovative waste-to-resource approaches, such as hydroxyapatite derived from by-products. Effective waste management strategies, such as reducing single-use plastics, using amalgam separators, and ensuring safe disposal of chemical and infectious waste, are highlighted as essential measures. Digital technologies, including CAD/CAM systems, teledentistry, and electronic health records, further contribute to reducing material waste, paper use, and travel-related emissions. Energy and water saving measures, such as energy-efficient equipment, solar-powered clinics, and water recycling systems, offer additional opportunities to minimise environmental impact. By embracing eco-friendly innovations, dentistry can reduce its ecological footprint while maintaining high standards of patient care, contributing meaningfully to global sustainability goals.
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This review summarises the environmental impact of the dental sector, focusing on mercury from amalgam, microplastic release from resins and disposable materials, and high energy and water consumption. It evaluates green dentistry concepts and sustainable practice alternatives.
Towards Sustainable Orthodontics: Environmental Implications and Strategies for Clear Aligner Therapy
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This review examines the environmental footprint of clear dental aligners, which are made from plastic polymers and generate significant waste since patients use multiple sets over treatment. The manufacturing and disposal of aligners contributes to microplastic pollution, and the paper suggests the dental industry should adopt more sustainable materials and recycling programs to reduce this impact.
Integrating sustainability in dentistry: a pathway towards achieving the UN 2030 agenda
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This article explores how sustainable practices in dentistry can reduce waste and environmental impact, in line with the UN's 2030 sustainability goals. While not directly about microplastics, the dental industry generates significant plastic waste from single-use items and disposable materials that can break down into microplastics. The push for greener dental materials and waste reduction could help decrease one source of microplastic pollution entering the environment.
How dentistry is impacting the environment
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This study examines dentistry's environmental impact in the context of the EU's 2021 single-use plastics ban, advocating for the dental industry to adopt the 4R framework—reduce, reuse, recycle, rethink—and transition to eco-friendly oral hygiene materials to shrink its ecological footprint.
The Need for a Sustainability Dentistry Guideline in Aotearoa New Zealand
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Sustainability guidelines needed for dental practices in New Zealand to reduce single-use plastic waste while maintaining patient care standards.
Research digests by email
When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.