Wonder if anyone caught this in the Scottish Daily Mail (23/10):
4.7m cups thrown away by dentists every year
DENTISTS in Scotland are throwing away a shocking 4.7million plastic cups a year.
The single-use beakers – used by patients to rinse out their mouths after treatment – are burned or sent to landfill. Scotland’s Chief Dental Officer Margie Taylor called the waste ‘mind-blowing’ and appealed for public help to reduce it, saying:
‘Let’s find a solution. Perhaps NHS National Procurement will be able to help? I’ll see what they say. This seems to have chimed with a lot of colleagues. Is this the start of something?’
Alternatives, such as ecologically disposable cups and steel beakers that can be sterilised, already exist but are not used.
The British Dental Association Scotland said: ‘Dentists know there must be a more sustainable approach, but the first priority must be patient safety. We do not want to take any chances when it comes to minimising infection risk.’
Reproduced
Please log in or sign up to comment.