Issue 4, 2024

The global burden of plastics in oral health: prospects for circularity, sustainable materials development and practice

Abstract

Plastics are indispensable and ubiquitous materials in oral healthcare and dental applications, favored for their diversity in structure and properties, low cost, durability, chemical and water resistance, ease of processing, and shaping. However, ancillary plastics are used for short periods or even once due to hygiene concerns and convenience, and insufficient attention has been given to their unsustainable current usage and end-of-life. Thus, the amount of plastic waste generated by consumers and clinicians is staggering and projected to increase unabatedly for the foreseeable future. With recent advances in plastics recycling and sustainable polymers, it is time to consider alternatives to tackle dentistry's growing plastic waste problem. This Perspectives article highlights the sources and scale of dental plastic wastage, followed by a multi-pronged consideration of material and practical interventions for this issue. On the materials front, we discuss emerging approaches and alternative sustainable polymers to address the unsustainable end-of-life of existing petroleum-based dental plastics/polymers and enable material circularity. On the practical front, we discuss strategies for sustainable plastic usage, which must be implemented alongside complementary material approaches. These approaches highlight the abundant unrealized opportunities for developing a circular economy around dental plastics while reducing the environmental footprint of modern dentistry.

Graphical abstract: The global burden of plastics in oral health: prospects for circularity, sustainable materials development and practice

Article information

Article type
Perspective
Submitted
09 okt. 2023
Accepted
03 feb. 2024
First published
16 feb. 2024
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

RSC Sustain., 2024,2, 881-902

The global burden of plastics in oral health: prospects for circularity, sustainable materials development and practice

A. Ong, J. Y. Q. Teo, D. C. Watts, N. Silikas, J. Y. C. Lim and V. Rosa, RSC Sustain., 2024, 2, 881 DOI: 10.1039/D3SU00364G

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements