Dental amalgam - hazardous medical waste.
What is dental amalgam?
Dental amalgam, which belongs to the group of medical waste marked with the code 18 01 10*, is hazardous waste containing compounds such as mercury, tin, copper or silver.
In practice, these are simply dental fillings that have been used since the 19th century. Fortunately, there are fewer and fewer of them and they are very rarely encountered.
Since January 1, 2019, every place where dental amalgam is used and in every office where this type of filling is removed is required to have and use dental amalgam separators so that its residues do not enter the sewage system and thus the environment.