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Dental Amalgam

Minimata:

The European Union introduced regulation 2017/852 to implement the Minimata Convention on Mercury. This is an environmental regulation rather than a health regulation and its purpose is to reduce the amount of mercury used in many industries and professional sectors, including dentistry.

This European Union amended this in regulation 2024/1849. This regulation gives effect to the European Union decision to mostly phase out the use of dental amalgam in all member states from 1 January 2025. 

It should be borne in mind that this is for environmental reasons and not health reasons and there is no obligation on dentists to remove functioning amalgam fillings.  The EU regulations will allow for amalgam to be used after 1 January 2025 in certain limited circumstances. 

As a consequence, the Dental Council has amended its code of practice booklet for the dental profession and this can be accessed at: 

Code of Practice regarding Dental Amalgam (Jan 2025)