Mercury is found in dental fillings, thermometers and fish, just to name a few sources, and is a very dangerous pollutant to the environment. So Norway banned it in the manufacturing and import and export of products, beginning at the start of 2008. Sweden announced a similar ban and dentists in Denmark will no longer be allowed to use mercury in fillings after April 1.

While the European Union and the United States haven't introduced such bans, they may come soon. According to the Mercury Policy Project, the House of Representatives in October approved a mercury export ban that would go into effect by 2010. One Colorado county is already fighting against mercury – in the dead. The county won't allow morticians to work without installing a smokestack filter on crematories, or agree to pull the teeth of the dead because of the mercury that is emitted from cremated bodies. In the United States that's only about 1 percent, but in places where crematory rates are higher – such as the United Kingdom, where 70 percent of the population chooses to be cremated – about 16 percent of mercury emissions come from dead people's fillings.

I guess limiting dangerous pollutants wherever and whenever possible is always a good move, but the amount of mercury pollution from dental fillings does seem a bit trivial. Of all the mercury pollution in the United States, 85 percent of it is released by coal-burning power plants and municipal and medical waste incinerators.