Dental & Medical

Global Changes in supply and demand for mercury

With the introduction of the Minamata convention there is a need to understand the global changes in supply and demand for mercury. Current estimates suggest a downward trend in both supply and demand. The supply of mercury from primary mining has not decreased as much as initially expected. Indeed, mercury recovery from by-products of nonferrous production has not yet been implemented extensively. Currently Japan’s small amount of mercury is exported after being refined. In response to an …

3 reasons why your business should recycle X-rays and film

If your workplace has old X-rays and silver-based films gathering dust, why not recycle them and get back that space while doing the right thing for the environment. Digital radiography has largely replaced the need for traditional X-rays, however there is still a lot of old X-rays and films hidden away in hospitals, medical clinics and radiology centres. Old X-rays and silver-based films can be recycled easily, whether it’s a small amount lying around the home or commercial-scale quantiti…

How dentists can better manage waste and become more sustainable

Dentists can make their practices more sustainable and improve their environmental footprint by recycling old dental amalgam, equipment and other waste. Dental fillings and electronic waste (e-waste) hold small amounts of mercury and need to be recycled to prevent the mercury from contaminating and poisoning the environment. The average dental surgery is estimated to generate half a kilogram of mercury waste every year, largely made up of used dental amalgam. While paper, glass bottles …

3 reasons why dentists should recycle dental amalgam fillings

Dental fillings are an important part of oral healthcare, but the dental amalgam used to fill our cavities should be recycled to protect the environment. The small amount of mercury found within dental amalgam is safe for humans, but old dental fillings typically end up going down the drain when your dentist replaces them. So much so, it’s estimated that the average dental surgery generates half a kilogram of mercury waste every year. Luckily, dentists can do their bit by installing an …

3 things that dental and medical clinics may not know they can recycle

Dental and medical professionals provide healthcare every day with the help of various tools, many of which can be recycled when disposed of properly. While some medical and dental products can be discarded in the normal recycling bin, others contain hazardous materials such as mercury and need to be handled through specialist services. Recycling mercury-containing products prevents the toxic metal from ending up in landfill and potentially leaking into waterways, which can have devastatin…

5 benefits of recycling mercury-containing waste

Recycling mercury-containing waste goes a long way in protecting the environment, but did you know that there are additional benefits? Mercury is found in some surprising places around the home and workplace, including batteries, lighting, computers, televisions and even teeth fillings. While the mercury in these products are safely contained for everyday use, even a small amount of the toxic material can have a destructive impact when it is dumped in landfill. The mercury-recycling mov…

How to dispose of and recycle amalgam waste

Dentists have long used dental amalgam to fill cavities in teeth, but practitioners are increasingly recycling old amalgam instead of discarding it. Dental amalgam needs to be disposed of responsibly otherwise dangerous materials like mercury can have a devastating impact on the environment. While the amount of mercury in dental amalgam is safe for most people, it can convert into highly toxic methylmercury when it ends up in our waterways and contaminates the fish that we eat. It takes…

Can I recycle broken medical equipment?

Keeping us healthy and treating us when we are sick requires a wide range of different types of medical equipment. So, is broken medical equipment recyclable? It all depends on the specifics – the nature of the equipment, how much of it there is, and whether it contains hazardous materials or components. Why recycle? There are two main reasons to recycle broken medical equipment. The first is to extract any hazardous materials to prevent them being released into the environment. Ex…

How does Ecocycle collect, transport, store and recycle medical waste?

Ecocycle’s original interest in medical waste was in the recovery of mercury from instruments such as thermometers and sphygmomanometers (blood pressure monitors). These items still make up a significant fraction of the medical waste we receive, but these days the biggest component of the medical waste stream that we recycle comprises old x-ray films. X-ray films can take up a lot of storage space in hospitals and radiology clinics. In one case, we removed over 50 tonnes of x-ray films …

How does Ecocycle collect, transport, store and recycle dental amalgam?

Dental amalgam does a great job in combating tooth decay, but they don’t last forever and often need replacing. If old amalgam fillings are discarded into the sewers, they end up in waterways and the ocean. There, bacteria convert metallic mercury into the highly dangerous methylmercury. That’s the form that contaminates fish, and can end up back on our dinner plates. Ecocycle’s dental amalgam recycling program provides a closed-loop recycling solution that keeps mercury out of the envi…

How does Ecocycle collect, transport, store and recycle X-rays?

These days Ecocycle is best known as a specialist recycler of mercury, but when it began back in 1996 as Ecocycle Industries, the focus was all on recovery of silver from X-rays. As with other forms of imaging the X-ray world has now largely gone digital, but with vast numbers of old X-rays gathering dust in homes and hospitals, medical clinics and factories, we continue to receive a steady stream of old X-ray films for recycling. We also accept the developer and fixer chemicals used to pr…

Victorian dentists support reduction of mercury

The Australian Dental Association Victorian Branch (ADAVB) has put its weight behind the proposals the Federal Government has set out for its ratification of the Minamata Convention on Mercury, at least as they relate to dentistry. The ADAVB believes its members are already well placed to support the implementation of Convention [1]. Its Dentists for Cleaner Water Program ran from 2008 to 2011 and saw the installation of more than 700 amalgam separators across Victoria. It’s estimated thes…

6 things that medical (and dental) clinics can recycle

Medical clinics are dedicated to improving health, but in the process they sometimes need to use items that contain hazardous materials. It’s therefore critical that health facilities understand what the hazards are, and ensure that they are managed in a safe way. Front of mind will be things like sharps and potentially infectious materials, but in medical and dental clinics there are other wastes that need to be carefully disposed of. Fortunately, effective and safe recycling options exist f…

How to recycle thermostats, thermometers and sphygmomanometers

When you last had your blood pressure measured, how was it done? Automatic, digital devices are increasingly taking over this task but there are still large numbers of old sphygmomanometers (that’s what devices used to measure blood pressure are called) doing good service in medical clinics and hospitals around the world. Many of these older devices contain quite large amounts of mercury, so when upgrade time rolls around it’s critical that they are safely recycled and the mercury recovered. …

How hospitals can drive recycling programs

Hospitals are among our most important institutions, but in working to restore and maintain health, they create large amounts of waste. In Victoria, public hospitals produce as much waste as 200,000 households. Add in private hospitals and the sector, in just one state, generates as much waste as a medium-sized city. Natural leaders Hospitals need to be natural leaders when it comes to recycling and the safe disposal of hazardous waste. After all, it makes no sense to take care of patien…

Could dentists be Australia’s biggest mercury polluters?

Last year a major water utility was outed as Australia’s biggest dumper of mercury. In the course of one year it discharged 40kg of mercury waste into the sea from its outfall pipes at Manly and Malabar in New South Wales. Earlier, it had been discovered that sharks caught off the NSW coast contained high levels of mercury, including some species that are often eaten as fish and chips. While it may not be possible to prove that the major water utility’s discharges are responsible for th…

Why it’s important to have and maintain an amalgam separator

Amalgam separators are simple, non-mechanical devices that sit within the drainage systems of dental practices. As their name implies, the purpose of an amalgam separator is to trap waste dental amalgam and separate it from wastewater that can then be safely discharged to the sewers. With mercury contamination a big enough problem to give rise to a United Nations convention, amalgam separators play a critical role in reducing mercury pollution. While there are dental clinics already fitted…

Dental amalgam: Reducing mercury pollution from cremations

Even in death, we can still be responsible for mercury pollution. On average, a cremated body releases two to four grams of mercury from the dental amalgam in the teeth. Individual crematoria can release over 5 kg of mercury per year, and in the United Kingdom, crematoria release around two tonnes of mercury every year (pdf). With death being a growth industry, total mercury emissions from cremations are set to rise. Push for regulation Not surprisingly, demands are being made for action to…

How X-rays Created An Underground Music Industry

In the age of iTunes and Spotify it’s hard to imagine not being able to listen to the music of your choice. But it was a different story in the Soviet Union of the 1950s. If your tastes tended towards Elvis Presley or Ella Fitzgerald rather than classical or patriotic music, listening to your favourite songs could get you arrested. Some Of The First Pirated Music The risk of imprisonment wasn’t enough to deter a small band of inventive music lovers from creating an underground industry prod…

Dental amalgam waste is a prescribed industrial waste (PIW)

Owing to the mercury content, the Environment Protection Agency Victoria (EPAV) defines used dental amalgam waste as prescribed industrial waste (PIW), with the waste code D121 (Equipment and Articles containing mercury). This must be disposed of at waste facilities holding the appropriate EPA licence. What should happen? What does happen? Dental amalgam must be collected in compliant separators and disposed of to a facility that holds an EPA licence to be retained and recycled. Amalgam fil…

Raising mercury recycling awareness at the 2016 ADIA Victorian Dental Show

The Victorian branch of the Australian Dental Industry Association held its biannual Victorian Dental Show at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre on June 17 and 18. Running alongside the popular scientific convention, the show featured more than 40 exhibitors, providing dentists with the opportunity to stay abreast of developments in the industries underpinning their practices. The Ecocycle team was kept very busy fielding enquiries from old friends as well as dentists who were una…

Mercury Vs Microbeads: A Tale Of Two Pollutants

The cosmetics industry is acting to phase out microbeads, but dentists are slow to clean up their act on mercury pollution. Microbeads Microbeads are tiny particles of plastic that are used in facial scrubs, soaps and toothpastes. The beads are made from the common plastic, high-density polyethylene. They are not intrinsically toxic, but when flushed down the drain they pass through sewage treatment plants and end up in the environment. There, birds, fish and other marine animals can ingest th…

10th anniversary of the adoption of Minamata

Recycling Dental Amalgam Couldn’t Be Easier

For over 20 years Ecocycle has been collecting and recycling the mercury from dental amalgam waste and to us, it's more than just a job. Each year an average Australian dental surgery produces around 1kg of amalgam waste containing about 500g of mercury metal. It takes just one gram of mercury to contaminate a billion litres of water, so you can understand why we are keen to ensure that all dental amalgam waste is properly recycled. From the dentist's point of view, the whole process could…

Dentists, When Was The Last Time Your Amalgam Filter Was Serviced?

Amalgam separators are so unobtrusive it’s easy to forget that they are there. Connected to the drainage system of dental chairs, all they need is the power of gravity to trap dental amalgam and prevent large quantities of mercury from entering the environment. Because your amalgam separator works away quietly in the background, many dental clinics forget that their dental amalgam filters need to be serviced and cleaned regularly. As it does its job collecting amalgam waste, your amalga…

The Easy Way For Businesses To Recycle X-Rays And Film

Like most areas of imaging, X-rays have gone digital, but there are still large quantities of old, silver-based X-ray film filling up storage space in hospitals and radiology centres around Australia. Just as vinyl records still have their fans, silver-based films remain in use in some parts of the imaging industry. If you're an Australian business - whether it be a hospital, a radiology clinic or any other health service that uses X-ray imaging, then you could be sitting on a pile of X-ray f…

The Ecocycle world class purpose build Batch Process Distiller distills recovered mercury waste for safe transport.

A Major Step Towards A Cleaner Dental Industry

The Industry is pleased to announce a ground-breaking agreement that will help to significantly reduce the amount of toxic mercury that enters the environment. All major companies that currently supply amalgam retention cups to dentists, Cattani, Ritter Dental with their Metasys range and Dürr (on behalf of their agents) Henry Schein, Ivoclar, Sirona and William Green, have entered into signed exclusive agreements that will ensure their amalgam retention cups will only be sold on a replacemen…

Tiny Villains Of Mercury Pollution Are More Common Than We Thought

While mercury in its metallic form is toxic, a bigger problem occurs when mercury spreads into the environment. Once mercury is released into the environment, some types of bacteria convert the metal into methylmercury. This is a far more poisonous substance. It is readily absorbed by fish and other animals, and can build up to dangerous levels as it is concentrated up the food chain, all the way up to humans. Methylmercury is the cause of the devastating Minamata Disease. Now recent resea…

Ecocycle Boosts Mercury Recycling At ADX2016 Sydney

Ecocycle is proud to have been a major sponsor of Australia’s largest dental exhibition, ADX16, held in Sydney last month. The Ecocycle Café and Ecocycle Drinks helped to raise awareness of the brand and, more importantly, spark interest in amalgam recycling by dental practices that haven’t yet installed amalgam separators. Also giving a boost to the cause of safe mercury waste disposal was a product showcase presentation by Ecocycle’s dental specialist, Mr Ian Crawford. His talk, Remov…

July – September ADIA Dental Survey 2015: Key Takeaways

The latest results of the ADIA Dental Practice Business Conditions Survey reveal that the July-September quarter of 2015 was a difficult one for dentists. While new patients held steady between July and September, the total number of patients seen was down in all states. Business conditions held up best in NSW/ACT, with just a moderate downward trend, whereas WA and SA/NT dentists saw a significant fall in patient numbers in their dental clinics. There was also an increase in vacant appointme…

It's time to modernise the way most dental surgeries deal with amalgam waste. Image: Tasmanian Archive & Heritage Office via Flickr (CC)

Will Australia Follow The US On Amalgam Separators?

The US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) recently released a proposal to require dental practices to install amalgam separators to control the discharge of dental amalgam pollutants. In the US, dental offices are the largest single source of the mercury that flows through water treatment works, contributing about half of total amount of mercury that ends up in water treatment systems. It’s reasonable to assume that it is a similar situation in Australia. So why is that a problem? Al…

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