11 Jan

New dental recycling scheme launches to encourage practices to go green

A new recycling scheme has launched with the aim of encouraging dental practices to go green.

The Philips Dental Care Recycling Programme is a national scheme, which has been set up by Philips in association with Terracycle. The organisations are hoping to work together to get practices across the UK on board to recycle thousands more dental products every year. Dental practices dispose of millions of items, many of which end up in landfill and incineration sites. Promoting recycling will reduce waste and enable manufacturers to reuse recyclable materials. 

As well as appealing to practices and dental centres, the initiative is also targeting patients. Examples of products that can be recycled as part of the programme include electric toothbrush covers and heads, electric flosser nozzles, interdental brushes, dental floss containers and flossing sticks. 

Dental teams that wish to participate in the scheme are invited to create a free Terracycle account and request a recycling box. Patients will then be able to deposit items they no longer want at their local clinic. When the box is full, the practice can request a pre-paid shipping label from Terracycle via their online account. Practices will earn points for every kilogram of waste collected over a minimum of 2kg. Terracycle’s recycling points can be redeemed for money to be used for charitable donations or donations to schools. 

So far, more than 200 practices have signed up to take part in the scheme. Philips is currently working on recruiting more clinics to participate in the hope of recycling as many dental products as possible in 2021 and the years ahead.