Dental amalgamators are part of the equipment in dental offices. Dental amalgam contains trace amounts of mercury. While the mercury in the amalgam is considered harmless while in the patient’s restoration, there is some concern that large quantities of amalgam gathering in the same place could pose environmental concerns. Obviously dental offices, which remove and place amalgams, are responsible for sending large amounts of waste amalgam into the sewer via the suction system.
Most jurisdictions in North America now require that dental offices capture and treat waste amalgam rather than dumping it into the sewer. A few years ago, when the idea that this might be happening started to float around, there was a lot of resistance from dental offices. Much of this was simply because of a lack of understanding of how the new laws would work, and how it would impact the day to day operations of a dental practice. Now that these regulations have become commonplace it is nice to see that, aside from the added costs, dental offices have been unaffected by the change.
Waste amalgam management is a simple process. An amalgam separator is installed in the dental office vacuum line to capture the vast majority of the waste. Typically, the amalgam separator is installed before the main suction line filter, so that all waste runs through the special filter on the amalgam separator. What this means is that the amalgam separator filter fills up rather quickly, since all waste product runs through it.
Unfortunately, if the separator is installed after the filter, there is a risk that some amalgam would be captured by the suction filter and be disposed of down the garbage or dumped into a sink. Interestingly, there is no regulation that I am aware of that specifies the order that the filter and separator must be installed. This could be limited to my knowledge, so it is best to follow the recommendations of your local service technician.
The separator that I have found (based purely on my experience) to be the most trouble free is the Solmetex HG5. This filter system uses disposable cartridges that last from six months to a year. With no moving parts, there is very little to go wrong with the equipment, which means that the chance of a breakdown caused by this equipment is quite small. Learn more about the HG5 at http://www.solmetex.com/2_dental/hg5.html.
Tags: dental amalgamators, Dental Equipment
Dentist Santa Monica
It’s good to know that there is already waster amalgam management. This will help lessen the problems when it comes to this filling material containing mercury. With this improvement, dentists are also able to show that they are beginning to be more eco-friendly.