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Listen to this siteMonday 12 February 2007
Study Duration : November 2005 - March 2008
Contractor : University of Liverpool
This study aimed to quantify the risk of potential mercury contamination associated with consuming crops grown close to crematoria and to provide the underpinning evidence to support Agency advice and guidance.
There is a possibility that produce grown in the vicinity of crematoria have elevated levels of mercury. Crematoria are a source of mercury emissions derived principally from dental amalgam (which is approximately 50% mercury by weight). The number of individuals cremated each year has risen and it has been estimated that crematoria will be the single biggest contributor to national mercury emissions by 2020.
Based on a review of literature and other information sources, two predicted high mercury emission crematoria (Bournemouth Crematorium and Landican Crematorium) were identified as suitable sites for sampling. Samples of soil and vegetation (including crops and other foodstuffs) were collected around these two sites and analysed for their levels of mercury. The risks to human health from consuming crops grown in the vicinity of crematoria were then assessed.
Mercury concentrations measured in samples collected in the vicinity of both the Bournemouth and Landican Crematoria studies were low and within the range of concentrations reported by other studies as typical of the UK rural environment. There was a detectable increase in mercury concentrations around both crematoria (within 100m of the emission stacks) but these were still within the range that may be described as typical of the UK background and were at the low end of concentrations reported in the few previous studies of mercury around crematoria.
A highly conservative risk assessment demonstrated that the potential exposure of members of the public to mercury arising from crematoria stack emissions via foodstuff consumption is almost certainly indistinguishable from the existing background concentrations of mercury existing in the UK population diet. It was therefore concluded that there is no discernable impact of mercury emissions from crematoria on human health via foodstuff consumption.
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