Our Green Office

The term “Green” building has appropriately become popular as a reference to being “people and planet friendly”. This sound concept was a factor in every decision we made in planning our move, selecting our building and location, construction decisions, building maintenance issues, and daily practice management protocols. What specifically does that mean? Admittedly, we often did, and still do, decide to go “patient-friendly” over “planet-friendly”, “hi-touch” over “hi-tech”.

There are huge windows in every treatment room with a terraced view of classic, East Texas, natural woods. These same windows are energy-efficient, double- paned glass with an added filmed coating.

Our air conditioning system was changed to a zoned, maximum energy-efficient system with ducted return air and insulation on the outside of the oil-free metal ducts.

Reception and business office air is filtered by a Faust Series 400 Air Purifier with a large carbon bed and a safe HEPA filter to remove chemicals and particles down to .3 microns in size. Treatment areas are protected with ionizing filters that are the best for removing mercury from the air.

In search of a polyurethane–free flooring in the reception and treatment rooms, we went from wood to bamboo to Travertine to ceramic to dirt, and delightfully ended up with porcelain. In the lab area we chose marmoleum flooring which is fully biodegradable and naturally inhibits bacterial growth.

The water we offer you to drink and that which irrigates your mouth and our hand pieces in the treatment rooms is from glass-contained, Mountain Valley Spring Water. We have installed amalgam-separating filters in our plumbing to collect the mercury effluence that is associated with dental office drainage. With no professional pride do I tell you that this is still voluntary, and not a national mandate, for the profession that polluted San Francisco Bay with mercury before the filters became mandatory.

Reduced, even minimized radiation exposure due to digital intra-oral and panoramic x-rays. By going 100% digital we lost the paper, lead foil, and developing fluids associated with traditional film.

Color-corrected, super-efficient fluorescent lighting in treatment areas. We started using them 30 years ago to get the best shade matches. What about the mercury in all fluorescent bulbs? Home Depot has a bulb drop-off box that we use.

Paint with no VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) was chosen from Sherwin Williams. It cost more (surprised?) but eliminated the new paint “smell” and will reduce toxins for years to come.

Stationery, cleaning products, Energy-Star appliances, less-paper due to computers that are operated wisely. There is more and there will be more-to-come as we learn better ways to be “patient and planet friendly”.

 

Our New Logo,

Design of our first logo began in 1989. We spent most of the year creating and editing and ended up with the bird flying into the sun with the facial profiles in his wings. The bird, btw, is a sea gull, because that is what “Glaros”means in Greek, which is my late-fathers heritage. Back to the current logo story.  

We started working on a new logo as we were designing the new, Kuykendahl office in 2008. Going Green was part of every decision and I wanted a logo to reflect that. Over Thanksgiving that year I was proudly showing my brother and brother-in-law my favorite, new, personal design. They were less than impressed. The more I explained the less impressed they got. Finally, my brother said, Whats wrong with the old logo?

My brother-in-law then said, Keep the bird and add a green sprig to represent natural healing?

Yea! What a good idea I had. So we took the sea gull (not the dove), put a mint sprig (not an olive branch) in his beak, sleeked the wings and profiles, and called it our New logo.