A
pair of ignominious `honors': Southborough-based dental
group criticized for mercury pollution
(12/05/2002)
By
Michelle Muellenberg
SOUTHBOROUGH
-- Two MetroWest organizations received dubious honors
yesterday, landing on an environmental group's "Dirty
Dozen" list for worst polluters in the state this
year.
The Boston-based Toxics Action Center
named the Massachusetts Dental Society in
Southborough, for mercury pollution, and the city
of Marlborough's Easterly Wastewater Treatment Plant, for
phosphorus pollution, as two of the 12.
For the past six years, the center has
selected organizations it feels pose a serious public
health or environmental threat.
"These are places and sites
throughout the state that are or could be having serious
effects on neighbors and communities," said Jay
Rasku, the center's director.
"(Honoring) the Massachusetts
Dental Society is a little unusual," he said.
"We usually target hazardous waste sites and power
plants but mercury is a big problem."
The Massachusetts Dental Society, part
of the American Dental Association, is a professional
organization with around 4,500 practicing and retired
dentists.
"Mercury is one of the most
toxic chemicals out there," Rasku said. "It
causes severe neurological problems, especially in
children."
For dentists, mercury comes from the
amalgam fillings used for cavities.
Nationwide, dentists use
approximately 40 metric tons of mercury each year, most of
which is released into the environment, according to Tiffany
Skogstrom, Boston campaign organizer for Health Care
Without Harm, the organization that nominated MDS for the
award.
"Dentists are
the largest source of mercury in Massachusetts,
discharging 36 pounds of mercury down the drains into the
Massachusetts Bay every year," Skogstrom said.
The mercury, she said, especially
harms woman of child-bearing age and children under 12.
"It gets into the food chain and then into our
bodies."
The Massachusetts Department of Public
Health has issued warnings against eating fish caught in
the waterways because of their high concentration of
mercury, Rasku added. Hospitals around the state have
specific regulations on mercury disposal, Skogstrom said.
"In 1995, the Greater Boston Area
Hospital dumped 22 pounds of mercury into the water. In
2001, they had 1 pound," she said. "Hospitals
are forced to comply but dentists still are unregulated
today."
In 2001, the MDS signed a memorandum
with the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs for the
reduction of mercury, but according to Rasku, the
agreement focused on education outreach instead of action.
"We need MDS to step up and require
regulations and advocate for mercury filters for dentists
throughout the state," he said. "The simple
solution is to require the dentists to install these
filters."
Choosing products that don't contain
mercury, Rasku said, is another step dentists can take.
More than 90 percent of the mercury used
by dentists is caught before going into the waterways,
according to Dr. Shepard Goldstein, president of the
Massachusetts Dental Society.
Seventy percent of mercury from the
fillings is caught with two filters from the suction
equipment dentists use, Goldstein said. More than 20
percent is then removed from the waste management
companies.
Although there is no official
regulation, Goldstein said the MDS sends out a card
stating the best practices for handling and recycling
mercury wastes and other chemicals.
The dental society also met with the
Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, which Goldstein
said is happy with its management of mercury disposal.
"We are really right up on
it," he said. "Most of the (mercury) reaching
the fish is already in the air from power plants...We are
not getting into the ponds and lakes like that."
In response to using another product
besides amalgam, Goldstein said based on research it is
the best and most cost-effective product.
"In the present moment with
everything out there we are doing a very good job,"
he said. "We are certainly always open to other
approaches."
Dental
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