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Dundee dental supplier finds creative ways to divert waste

Wrights has been sending damaged and returned stock to zoos and animal centres, avoiding waste disposal fees and helping charities in the process.

From their head office in Dundee, Wrights has supplied dental products for over 100 years.

From aprons to false teeth, the business distributes almost everything a dentist might use to countries around the world. It has around 200 staff in the UK, plus operations in the United States and South Africa.

Environmental coordinator Kellie Ross joined Climate Springboard in March 2025, looking for ideas for how to reduce their carbon emissions and “to make sure we were on the right lines” when it came to collecting data, she explains.

Last month, we caught up with Wrights to learn more about their progress since completing the programme – in particular, an ongoing effort to tackle waste.

“Dentistry is unfortunately one of those industries where there is a lot of waste,” Kellie says.

One source of waste is damaged, returned or expired stock. Often the damage is only superficial, such as ripped packaging. But due to the high health and safety standards required of products used in a medical setting, these goods can no longer be used and would typically go straight in the bin.

Some are classed as hazardous substances, which means paying for professional disposal.

Creative reuse

Kellie realised – thanks to a previous job as a zookeeper at nearby Camperdown Wildlife Centre – that much of what was being thrown away was perfectly safe for animal use.

She says: “I just approached my old workplace, and they were more than willing to take some of the stuff that we were throwing away.”

“It expanded from there.”

Wrights now regularly donates boxes of damaged or expired dental supplies, in particular PPE like gloves, bibs, aprons and covers. They have worked with 40 different charities, including a local hedgehog rehabilitation centre, whose staff find all sorts of uses for them.

They're finding a use for it and we're saving money on disposal costs Kellie Ross

Bags of plaster used for tooth moulds, for example, can sometimes get sliced open by forklifts when being moved around the warehouse, explains Kellie.

“I found that zoos will lap them up. They love to make paw print casts. So, we've been shipping those all over the country for people to make paw print casts of various different species. They're used for education purposes, conservation… some have been sold on by auction to raise money for the zoo.”

A snow leopard paw print cast using waste dental plaster

Cost savings

Wrights have so far diverted 28 bags of plaster, weighing 700 kilos in total, that would have otherwise gone to waste. With disposal costing £3.50 per kilo, this has resulted in savings of around £2,500.

On one occasion they sent 800 packs of antibacterial wipes, which were expired but still usable in a non-medical setting, to a zoo. This alone saved them £980 in disposal costs.

“It's a win-win situation,” says Kellie. “They're finding a use for it and we're saving money on disposal costs.”

The lost income from wasted goods, too, is eye-opening. To date, the value of products donated because they couldn’t be sold is £16,000.

Ripple effects

Seeing how much this waste is costing the business has prompted the team at Wrights to look more closely at how they might avoid stock becoming ‘waste’ in the first place.

Kellie says: “There is more of a push to find ways to make use of items rather than just chuck them in a skip, which is a big plus. We’re looking more closely at how we can refine purchasing requirements and add additional expiry date checks.”

We want to make sure that we're not buying too much in the first place

One option on the table is to offer discounts on products that are nearing expiry, to encourage dentists to buy and use them while it is still safe to do so, rather than going to waste. Another is to monitor their stock more closely to make sure they only order as much as they need.

“We want to make sure that we're not buying too much in the first place. [Right now] we're unnecessarily shipping stuff here just to have to dispose of it,” she adds.

Top tips from Wrights

  • 📊 Share your carbon data with staff. We were struggling with some people getting on board with some of the changes, particularly reducing heat. But when we showed them the figures from our carbon reduction plan, they could see the difference it was making.
  • 🫱🏻‍🫲🏿 Lean on personal connections. You’d be surprised who your workmates might have links to. Our partnership with zoos and animal charities was the result of someone having worked there in the past.

Learn more