Why dentistry is learning to prioritise consequence over convenience

Why dentistry is learning to prioritise consequence over convenience

Before too long, sustainability will be widely embraced by the dental profession, predict Giles and Leslie Edwards.

Please introduce yourself

My name is Giles and with my wife Leslie we have invented Friendly Floss, a sustainable stainless-steel dental flossing tool. Our aim is to replace single use plastic floss picks with a far more sustainable and kinder option. For each person who uses Friendly Floss, that could be 1000 plastic floss picks saved over three years.

My passion is trying to stop the damage being done to the planet and its wildlife by our reliance on single use products. We would like society to move from a ‘make many times, use once’ philosophy to a ‘make once, use many times’.

Why a dental product?

I cycle to most places and wherever I go, I find plastic floss picks littering streets and parks. Floss picks can be obscenely harmful to birds and animals, not to mention the oceans, which is where many end up.

Years ago I saw a pigeon being strangled by a plastic bag. I managed to free the bird and watch it fly off. This prompted me to start caring about my plastic use.

A few years later we watched David Attenborough’s Blue Planet II and saw how albatross chicks were being fed pieces of plastic that their parents had fished from the sea. When the regurgitated plastic got stuck in the chicks’ bodies, it caused a painful death. As things currently stand, good oral hygiene relies on too much plastic and particularly single use plastic. Sad events in nature and Blue Planet II inspired us to find a solution.

Since launching we have found there are many like-minded consumers who are moving away from convenience without consequence to really thinking about their impact and how small tasks, like flossing, can become a feel-good zero impact experience.

Why is sustainability such a talking point in dentistry?

Sustainability is a talking point everywhere and dentistry isn’t an exception. In 2015, the United Nations set out 17 interlinked Sustainable Development Goals.