Green Dentistry

Dr. Hoang considers herself a little bit of a tree-hugger!! It is important to her that her office is as “green” as possible.

Features of the office include an amalgam separator, a dry vacuum, reusable towels, and much much more.

All Digital Office

Dr. Hoang is NUTS about recycling! Even better, don’t produce waste to begin with! An all digital office means less paper waste, faster communications, and safer information storage.

Amalgam separator

Did you ever wonder where all that stuff goes once it leaves your mouth? We hope not! But if you do, you can rest assure that the toxic heavy metals are not carelessly released into our water systems. Dr. Hoang has an amalgam separator to ensure that the metals do not go out into our environment. The collected debris is turned into proper processing facilities that will dispose of the materials properly.

Dry Vacuum

Lamorinda Dental Care employs a Midmark PowerVac G. The shocking truth is that the conventional vacuums that power “Mr. Thirsty”, handpieces, virtually all of the dentist’s “powertools” use between 350 and 500 gallons of water every day! That’s enough to fill your typical 28,000 gallon swimming pool three times a year!! In North America alone, that’s 9 billion gallons of water wasted by dental offices a year. Dr. Hoang made the conscientious decision to pay three times more than the cost of conventional dental vacuums in order to employ one that is essentially water free.

Chemicals:

Yes let’s face it there are many chemicals involved in dentistry. Less toxic chemicals mean cleaner air for you and her staff!

By having digital radiography (x-rays), we are able to eliminate the need to have and dispose of toxic fixers and developers in the office.

Cleaning of the waterlines and dental instruments: Where available, Dr. Hoang has chosen to purchase and use “green” chemicals that are kinder to our environment in that they are biodegradable, phosphate-free, have less inherent toxicity, and less bioaccumulation potentials.

Disinfecting wipes: there are many awesome products out there that disinfect and sterilize surfaces. However many of them are harsh on our respiratory tracts! Lamorinda Dental Care uses Cavicide Caviwipes which means you can feel safe from germs and irritated throats!

BPA: yes, knowledge of the dangers of BPA has thankfully been more commonplace. You will be hard pressed to find Dr. Hoang willingly drink out of a plastic water bottle! BPA is an inherent by-product of all plastics. Sealants and composite fillings are a concern because of the resin in these materials. However it is only present in unset and unfinished material. This is very technical, but in case you want to know, unset material is material that has not properly hardened. This is because it has not been cured. Most dental materials cure with a special light or simply when enough time has passed. When the dentist shines a light on your filling material, this will “cure” or harden the material. The top-most layer of the material does not cure to completion because of an “oxygen-inhibited layer”. This means oxygen on the material makes it so it does not cure completely, which is why Dr. Hoang may place an oxygen barrier solution on top of your restoration, OR, another way to deal with the material is to simply remove it (trim it off). This usually happens anyway since most fillings need adjusting. This leaves behind only completely cured material. The more resin the material has, the bigger the problem might be. Dr. Hoang purchases specific composite materials that have high filler content and less resin content.

Steam sterilizer vs. Chemiclave: Lamorinda Dental Care only uses steam sterilizers. No chemicals. Good ol’ distilled water, in fact.

No cold sterilization. Did you know that cold sterilization is not approved for use in the state of California? Yet for some reason many offices in California have cold sterilization on their premises and are still using it! Gross! Lamorinda Dental Care will only steam sterilize. If something cannot be sterilized that way, it will be simply tossed and a new item used on you!

Disposables:

Reusable Hand Towels: It’s amazing how many paper towels an office can go through! We have for our patients’ use handtowels that we launder ourselves in our fancy LG Steam Washer and Dryer.