Our Environmental Commitment

We strongly believe in making a positive impact on the world we all share by conscientiously following environmentally-friendly practices in all of our dental and administrative procedures.

To that end, we are a proud partner of PACE – Partners for a Clean Environment -- a voluntary and non-regulatory program of Boulder County businesses. The overall goal of PACE is to reduce and eliminate hazardous materials and waste in water, land and air.

In order to maintain the highest environmental standards, a dental practice must be vigilant on two fronts – the standard administrative office area as well as the waste that results from the practice of dentistry.

Energy use and recycling

Administratively, we maintain energy efficiency and are avid proponents of recycling – both through purchasing recycled paper and products as well as recycling our own paper and container wastes.

In the actual practice of dentistry, there are many possible pollutants including the amalgam in dental fillings and the chemical processing solutions and products used in traditional x-ray processing.

Heavy metals such as mercury in amalgam and silver in traditional x-ray processing solutions are especially hazardous to ground water supplies. We have procedures in place to ensure the recycling of all of these substances. In addition, we substantially reduce our usage of processing solutions because we primarily use digital x-ray machines.

Digital x-rays

Digital x-ray machines require no chemical solutions whatsoever. Plus, they can use as little as 10 percent of the electric energy needed for conventional x-rays. And because the images are stored on computer, there is no waste or energy used in creating the physical slides and eventually destroying them.

As a PACE partner, we diligently follow its Dental Certification Criteria with the goal of passing along a clean environment to future generations.

PACE Dental Certification Criteria:

• Fixer solution is taken off-site for recycling
• All mercury-containing amalgam waste is recycled
• No chromium x-ray system cleaners are used
• Lead shields, bitewings, and foils are recycled or sent to a dental charity
• The building has backflow prevention installed
• Vacuum systems are turned off after hours
• Staff has been educated on water and energy conservation with vacuum systems and compressors
• Office recycles office paper and commingled containers and uses recycle-content paper
• Staff is trained in “Best Management Practices for Dental Waste”