Pac-Dent ProEvac Disposable Cuspidor Traps · Siemens & Planmeca

• Disposable Traps — Discarded with its contents instead of emptied. In the EPA’s comparison of state rules, one listed practice is that, where appropriate, disposable amalgam traps are preferable to reusable traps.
• Reusable Traps — Emptied and put back; the filter is changed according to the manufacturer’s recommended schedule.
• Trap Accessories — The screens, filters, strainers and housings that go with a trap rather than the trap itself.
• Central Vacuum — The pump and the shared lines behind the chairs, not the trap at a chair.
• Amalgam Separators — The EPA counts separators among the technologies that capture dental amalgam waste in addition to chair-side traps and vacuum pump filters.

Plaster traps on this shelf catch gypsum debris from a model sink, which is a different job from catching amalgam.

Service interval: the practice the ADA lists is to change the filter according to the manufacturer’s recommended schedule. Under the EPA rule an amalgam retaining unit is replaced on the manufacturer’s schedule, or when it has reached the maximum level at which the separator can still perform to the specified efficiency, whichever comes first.

What it will hold: disposable traps from units dedicated strictly to hygiene may be placed in with the regular garbage, while traps holding amalgam go into a sealed silver or gray storage container.

Line cleaners: chair-side traps and vacuum lines that discharge amalgam process wastewater to a public treatment works must not be cleaned with oxidizing or acidic cleaners such as bleach, chlorine, iodine and peroxide with a pH lower than 6 or greater than 8.

Records: a practice subject to the EPA rule keeps, for a minimum of three years, the date and results of each inspection of its separator or equivalent device, documentation of container replacement, and all dates on which collected amalgam was picked up or shipped for proper disposal.