ACP Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP 1680-7324 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acp-10-3665-2010 Mercury emission from crematories in Japan Takaoka M. 1 Oshita K. 1 Takeda N. 2 Morisawa S. 1 Department of Urban and Environmental Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University, Nishikyo-ku, Kyoto, 615-8540, Japan Eco-technology Research Center, Ristumeikan University, 1-1-1 Nojihigashi, Kusatsu, Shiga, 525-8577, Japan 20 04 2010 10 8 3665 3671 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/3665/2010/acp-10-3665-2010.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/3665/2010/acp-10-3665-2010.pdf

Anthropogenic sources of mercury emissions have a significant impact on global pollution. Therefore, finding uncharacterised sources and assessing the emissions from these sources are important. However, limited data are available worldwide on mercury emissions from crematories. In Japan, 99.9% of dead bodies are cremated, which is the highest percentage in the world, and more than 1600 crematories are in operation. We thus focused on emissions from crematories in Japan. The number of targeted facilities was seven, and we used continuous emission monitoring to measure the mercury concentrations and investigate mercury behaviour. The total mercury concentrations in stack gases were a few &mu;g/Nm<sup>3</sup> (normal cubic meters). Considering the time profile of mercury and its species in cremations, the findings confirmed that the mercury in stack gas originated from dental amalgam. The amount of mercury emissions was calculated using the total concentration and gas flow rate. Furthermore, the annual amount of mercury emission from crematories in Japan was estimated by using the total number of corpses. The emission amount was considerably lower than that estimated in the United Kingdom. From statistical analyses on population demographics and measurements, future total emissions from crematories were also predicted. As a result, the amount of mercury emitted by crematories will likely increase by 2.6-fold from 2007 to 2037.

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