SINKING HIS TEETH IN
How a fifth-generation dentist is trying to save the world.
If history and experience are things you value in a dentist, then you might want to give Marcus O’Meara a visit.
Not only is the Irishman fifth-generation dentist, but the family tradition stretches far enough back that his ancestor ripped out Napoleon Bonaparte’s wisdom tooth.
“We’ve had a dentist in the family since 1870,” he explains. “But even further back, there was Barry O’Meara who worked on Napoleon Bonaparte. I guess we carry some sort of dentist gene in the family.”
With such a unique – ahem – oral history, you’d think Marcus would enjoy chatting about the past, but he’s very much focused on the future, highlighted by the fact he’s made O’Meara Dental a carbon positive business.
“It all started from wanting to do the right thing for our patients,” he says. “We wanted to make the healthiest environment for them and that flowed onto thinking about the environment in general.”
But are dentists’ big polluters? How much impact can some floss and rubber gloves make?
“That’s true, it’s not like we’re a factory pumping smoke into the atmosphere,” he admits. “We’re minor polluters, but every new business, if you’re not carbon neutral or carbon positive, then you’re adding to the problem.
So, it’s not just about my dental surgery, it’s about adding up every small business in the country, which quickly becomes a huge problem.”
Not someone jumping on the sustainability bandwagon after a deadly summer, Marcus started walking this path eight years ago. After starting out like most people by recycling a few plastic bottles, his curiosity grew and eventually he started employing other likeminded businesses to help him and his team achieve bigger goals.
“Space Built were the guys we used to fit out the surgery. They only source high-performance, eco-specified materials. They also use natural stains and oils and they’ve spent a lot of time researching new technology and innovations. So, they helped me create an environment that’s as healthy as can be for our patients.
Dan from Cool Planet has also been great. They were going around the countryside talking to small businesses, helping them become as efficient as possible and we worked out they could help us become carbon positive.”
Other planet-saving measures Marcus has taken to reduce their emissions include taking their office paperless, diverting all food waste into Habitat’s Subpods, using mouth scanners instead of making physical moulds, buying carbon credits in local reforesting companies and – our fave – working with TerraCycle Australia, collecting all the rubber surgical gloves that would typically end up in landfill and turning them into new playground equipment.
It’s inspiring stuff, which is the point, says O’Meara.
“I really want other small businesses to look into it, because it’s not that difficult. If thinking about sustainability becomes as natural as talking about your branding and marketing, it could all change very quickly. Because it does flow into your personal life at home. It makes you think more about lots of little things. And the people who visit your business, they go home and think about it. It’s a little wave that circles out that can have a big impact on the planet.”
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