Village Family Chiropractic: Small Eco-Friendly Steps Add Up

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With a staff of four, Village Family Chiropractic has a large variety of patients of all ages, with a client base of around 1/3 children, 1/3 pregnant women, and 1/3 everyone else.  Dr. Lisa Geiger returned to the Boston area in 2004 after working in Scotland and Sweden and established her practice on 126 Harvard Street, Brookline in a big, drafty, beautiful 1890’s house, one of many similar houses in our town.  Geiger rents her space, which includes a room to work with clients, an office area, and an X-ray room.  The bathroom is shared with other tenants.

Because the rent includes utilities, Geiger and her team, which includes Dr. Jillian London and two administrative staff, haven’t been able to make big changes to the building’s energy use, but as she says, “We're trying to do our part and chipping away at it, and will keep looking for opportunities.”

Eco-Friendly Comfort for Patients

Reusable fleece cloths ready for use.

When a new patient is on the adjusting table, a clean cover must be used for their head and face area.  One option, of course, is paper – the kind you’ve probably encountered when you visit your doctor.  But that paper doesn’t feel all that good, especially if you’re face down.  Also, it turns out that this paper is classified as medical waste, so it can’t even be recycled.  So now Geiger uses soft, fleece cloths.  These feel much better and they can be washed and re-used.  Once they’re too worn, though, they’re donated to a local Montessori school and used for art projects or by the kids as “mops.”

Geiger also barters with clients who need some financial assistance – they can help wash, fold and sort the cloths. Fleece dries quickly, so even though a dryer is used, it doesn’t take much time or energy.

Patient room with large windows, fan and high-efficiency air conditioner

Keeping Cool in Summer

With three big, beautiful, southeast-facing windows, it can be a challenge to keep the temperature comfortable in the patient treatment room during the summer.  Window shades are pulled down in the morning when the sun beats in, then pulled up later in the day when the sun has moved away.   They also run fans and they’ve found a high-efficiency portable air-conditioner that’s vented through their windows - a must-have on the hottest summer days.

For winter, those three big windows (which have been upgraded by the building owner with high-efficiency glass, and tightened up) have plastic installed over the windows to cut down on heat loss as much as possible.

In the Bathroom

Staff wash cloths hanging in the bathroom

Geiger learned a lot from her time living in Sweden, where there’s a very strong green movement.  One technique borrowed from Sweden is to provide each employee with her own washcloth for drying hands and to hang them so that they can be re-used by their owner throughout the day.  For clients, they provide washcloths for them to dry their hands – there are no paper towels.  These are run through the washing machine so there are fresh cloths available each day.

Dr. Lisa and eco-friendly bath tissue

And ever eco-friendly, even the bath tissue is green – it’s made from bamboo.

 

Energy-Efficient Diagnostics

As a chiropractic practice, an X-ray for diagnostics was needed.  There were two issues:  first, in order to install an x-ray, a lead wall was required; second, using an x-ray would need a much higher level of electricity that usual.

The lead wall:  instead of an educated estimate, they did a meticulous review of their history to find exactly how many neck, mid-back and low-back images they would predict.  With that information, they could submit a realistic estimate to the Massachusetts Radiation Control Board and were granted the OK to bring in a smaller lead wall than they might otherwise.  And, even better, they were able find a recycled lead wall instead of building a new one.

The electricity:  X-ray imaging would require a much higher level of electrical capacity that the older building currently had.  The upgrade was estimated to cost about $15,000.  Instead, they bought a battery-powered generator with a high voltage transformer.  The generator can store electricity that’s available when there’s a needed spike.  That way they don’t have to tax the electricity capacity of the 1800’s house or spike the grid.

Energy-Efficient Diagnostics

As a chiropractic practice, an X-ray for diagnostics was needed.  There were two issues:  first, in order to install an x-ray, a lead wall was required; second, using an x-ray would need a much higher level of electricity that usual.

The lead wall:  instead of an educated estimate, they did a meticulous review of their history to find exactly how many neck, mid-back and low-back images they would predict.  With that information, they could submit a realistic estimate to the Massachusetts Radiation Control Board and were granted the OK to bring in a smaller lead wall than they might otherwise.  And, even better, they were able find a recycled lead wall instead of building a new one.

The electricity:  X-ray imaging would require a much higher level of electrical capacity that the older building currently had.  The upgrade was estimated to cost about $15,000.  Instead, they bought a battery-powered generator with a high voltage transformer.  The generator can store electricity that’s available when there’s a needed spike.  That way they don’t have to tax the electricity capacity of the 1800’s house or spike the grid.

What else have they done in the office?  They’re working on going paperless and they’ve found “Scansnap,” which does double-sided scanning at an amazing speed.  This means they can easily scan and store clients’ health information without using any paper.  And they recycle whatever and whenever they can, including their printer ink cartridges.

The Take Away

Dr. Lisa (right) and Dr. Jillian taking a lunch break with reusable lunch trays

Dr. Lisa Geiger and Dr. Jillian London love the building on Harvard Street where they rent space and provide their services.  With their eye to constantly thinking about what they can do to reduce waste and energy use, they’re showing how even with rental space in an older, drafty building you can take steps to lower your carbon footprint.  With so many buildings in Brookline from Victorian times, that’s a lesson many of us can use.

Want to Make Some of These Changes?

  1. Information on Scansnap can be found at scansnapworld.com
  2. Read about bamboo toilet tissue on https://www.greenmatters.com/news/2017/05/18/ZPF9SO/bamboo-toilet-paper
    Village Family Chiropractic uses whogivesacrap.org
  3. They use Dropps for their laundry. It has less additives and comes in cardboard boxes instead of plastic containers.

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