Removing old mercury fillings creates waste that still contains mercury. This study weighed that waste and checked mercury in dental wastewater—another reason separators and careful cleanup matter.
Installation of an approved amalgam-separating apparatus in dental clinics is recommended so as to reduce considerably the discharge of mercury into waste water.
This laboratory evaluation shows that amalgam separators removed at least 96.09 percent of the amalgam in samples with particle-size distribution as specified in ISO 11143. Total mercury concentration and total dissolved mercury concentration in the effluent varied widely for each amalgam separator. Additional research is needed to develop test methods to evaluate the efficiency of amalgam separators in removing small amalgam particles, colloidal amalgam particles and ionic mercury in solution.
