aligner recycling initiative, with the aim of promoting sustainability through its 2022 corporate social responsibility plan. Impress hopes that all patients will recycle their aligners and encourages its competitors will
do the same.
Impress has placed containers in all their flagship clinics in Spain so that its patients can deposit their aligners and do their part to preserve the planet. With thousands of patients visiting the clinics each year, it is expected that huge volume of plastic will be recycled each year, rather than ending up in landfill.
It comes as Impress continue to pioneer the industry by using their influence to support sustainability and protect the environment. All of the aligners that are collected in its clinics will be allocated to different uses and areas, which includes:
- As a fuel or means of generating energy: Once the aligners have been incinerated, the resulting energy can be used to generate heat or electricity.
- As a material for other industries: Recycled plastic is common in other industries, such as the automotive sector, for example, it’s used in bumpers, acoustic insulation plates, interior door panels, floors, and trunks.
- As a land treatment: To benefit agriculture and ecological development, the recycled aligners can be used to create fertilisers or soil conditioners.
Diliara Lupenko, Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer of Impress, said: “We are so excited to announce the launch of our recycling scheme. All companies should be doing everything in their power to protect the planet in any way they can, and we have been working on this scheme for a while behind the scenes”.
“After three years of revolutionising the orthodontic sector in Europe, we’re thrilled to be the first in our industry to go that one step further and bring sustainability to the field.”
Any patients wishing to recycle their retainers and support the new initiative are invited to deposit their aligners in one of the flagships, or send them by mail to the Impress laboratory.