Being sustainable and playing our part
We all have our part to play in becoming more sustainable and the world of oral health is no exception.
Smarter Smiles is a Smile Together partnership project and therefore an intrinsic part of our employee-owned, B Corp certified dental social enterprise. Smile Together is all about tackling oral health inequality for healthier happier communities and reducing our impact on the environment.
Recycling is an important part of the sustainability agenda and we’re proud that our Harleigh Road Dental Centre in Bodmin is registered location for the Terracycle-Colgate Recycling Programme. Several of our Smarter Smiles schools are also approved points, which you can see on our map.
We not only recycle old toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes and related packaging across all our practice locations but we encourage our communities to do the same. Our Smarter Smiles outreach team therefore encourages those we regularly visit to collect these items for us to then take away for recycling via our drop-off point in Bodmin. We provide swing-bins for collecting these items hygienically, which themselves are made from recycled plastic and are also recyclable!
We use compostable bags made from potato starch for our oral health education packs which break down in a matter of months in a home compost heap (or you can put them in a garden waste collection bin or food waste caddy).
Our project is as paperless as possible with the majority of documentation handled electronically, but any correspondence we do send out is printed on unbleached paper sourced from sustainable forests. Our stickers for the children are biodegradable (even the adhesive) and our fleet vehicles are electric or hybrid! Whenever possible we prioritise virtual meetings in order to reduce travel, but the nature of our oral health programme does necessarily see us our outreach team out and about in various settings. We therefore carbon offset where possible, including through our Smile Together tree planting partnership with Plant 1 CIC and other commitments to support Cornish habitats.
