Sir, we read your recent articles on the topic of 'green dentistry' with great interest.1,2 They clearly demonstrated the need for the entire dental profession to do their bit to make the world a greener, and thereby, a safer place to be. Indeed, these papers inspired me to implement changes in my own practice with the goal of making it the 'Greenest in the UK'.

Changes to our practice can be seen as soon as patients enter the door, pass through the waiting area, and go right through to the dental chair in the surgery. Our first step was to find the right products - green chairs, desks and carpets were easily installed in the waiting area but the surgery and infection control room proved trickier. In some cases, we had to create the products from scratch. This involved a lot of paint. We are pleased with the final result - see Figure 1.

Figure 1: Our surgery - officially the greenest in the UK
figure 1

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It really is a testament to our UK dental industry that such an array of colours is available for dental equipment. However, some items (including green syringes, glasses and autoclaves) had to be flown in from China.

Once we replaced all the surgery furniture, we held a big fire in the back garden to dispose of the old 'non-green' furniture, scrubs etc.

There has been push back from some members of team as one would expect when implementing such a major change. There appeared to be a lack of understanding of why the 'greening' of the practice was required with some members of staff claiming that we had misunderstood the problem of climate change etc. However, after a short time most came on board with the new practice colour, in particular those with red hair who found the hue particularly flattering.

We encourage further practices in the UK to follow suit and 'go green' with us and I am more than happy to provide advice from our own experience.

Note to readers

These letters have been created for the entertainment of readers in the spirit of seasonal good humour and, on the whole, are entirely fictional.