In our First Green Dentistry Meeting, 11 dental students and 5 dentists from 5 European countries took part and presented their information about their countries’ practices concerning Environmentally Responsible Management of the Dental Waste.

  The participants were: Lenah Hosseinzadeh - EDSA Vice President, Milisha Chotai, Giannis Grigoriadis and Marjaneh from Sweden; Dieuwertje Kuin - EDSA Secretary, and Florien Stoel from the Netherlands; Aliki Tsihlaki from the UK; Domagoj Vrazic – EDSA President, and Tea from Croatia; Kimon Divaris (ex – EDSA President), Thanos Νtounis (ex – EDSA Vice President), Nikos Telemes (EDSA Magazine editor), Diamantis Tassopoulos, Zafeiria Kakaletri, Kostas Kazanis, Dimitris Papavasileiou, and Dimitris Zamanis from Greece.

  Lenah raised the issue of the website translation. All agreed with that and with the deadline for the complete translation to be the end of January. The website is currently written in Greek and in English, and another three languages will be added, that is Swedish, Dutch and Croatian. Giannis suggested that a person from each country should be appointed to do the translation.
Sweden: Giannis Grigoriadis
The Netherlands : Dieuwertje Kuin
Croatia : Domagoj Vrazic
Greece : Zamanis Dimitris (political scientist)
UK : Aliki Tsichlaki

  Special electronic addresses in the form of xxxx@greendentistry.com were also agreed to be established for everyone participating in the Green Dentistry team. Marjaneh proposed that each country in their separate website have the freedom to create some special/extra section which would not be common with the other countries’ websites. Any new ideas for the Green Dentistry logo will be welcome as the Greek team noticed.

   Marjaneh also suggested that EDSA became an official section of the EU Commission, so that Green Dentistry is considered as an officially approved EU project. Such an accomplishment would contribute in the easiest information of a massive number of dentists about the issue. Kimon said that if a great number of dentists is available for immediate participation (through some kind of registration) in a net aiming in Environmentally Responsible Management of the Dental Waste, then negotiations with relative companies would be much easier and more beneficial in the financial dimension (more flexible and lower prices) for the dentists involved. The dentists registered can be kept up to date with any news from Green Dentistry network.

   Next, Milisha introduced the idea of a second survey on Dentists’ and Nurses’practices, attitudes and knowledge about the Environmentally Responsible Management of the Dental Waste.

   The need for the introduction of Environmentally Responsible Dentistry (Dental Waste Management) as a class in the Curriculum of the Dental Schools was also discussed. In Sweden and in the Netherlands it actually already exists, but not so effectively, according to the participants’ personal experience from the two countries reported.

  Kimon suggested that we should write publishable articles (peer review style) which would be included in a relative booklet of articles through cooperation by all countries for the following topics:

1. Sustainable development and Review of current EU and countries legislation (Greek team)
   
2. Practical considerations during daily practice (the Netherlands’ team)
   
3. Environmental implications of dental waste (Croatian team)
   
4. Best practices and recommendations (UK team)
   
5. Dentists, nurses, dental assistants’ practices, attitudes and knowledge (Sweden team)
   
6. Review of the current literature (References from articles)

The deadline for the articles to be finished was agreed to be the end of March.
Finally, the need for new Green Dentistry Meetings as this first one and for the promotion of presentations on the issue of Environmentally Responsible Dentistry was commonly recognized/mutually agreed.

THANK YOU ALL FOR ATTENDING
THE 1ST GREEN DENTISTRY MEETING!

Download Each Country Presentation:

ACTA /323KB/   Athens /62.7MB/  UK /68KB/  Sweden /100KB/   Zagreb /6.29MB/