NEARLY £1million has been put aside by council bosses to pay for new ovens at Burnley Crematorium because it is pumping out too much deadly mercury into the atmosphere.

An increasing reliance on teeth fillings is said to be main cause of the problem, with the Goverment ordering a crackdown on crematoriums whose emissions are too high.

Dental hygiene in East Lancashire is among the worst in the UK according to recent NHS statistics, with an estimated 150,000 adults aged 18 suffering from dental problems.

The ovens at the Rossendale Road crematorium, first installed around 1995, were scheduled to be overhauled but now £900,000 has had to be put aside to pay for new ones.

Each year the crematorium deals with around 1,600 bodies, with the majority of cases coming from Burnley and the remainder from parts of Rossendale and Pendle.

Simon Goff, Burnley council’s head of green spaces and amenities, said the Government had set a deadline of 2012 for crematoriums to reduce the amount of mercury released into the atmosphere per service by half from one gram.

He said: “The regulations now require cremation authorities to deal with emissions of mercury, which are the result of the amalgam used in people’s fillings in their teeth.

“The mercury is emitted from the crematorium in exhaust gases, and is deposited in water bodies, such as rivers and lakes, in the area.

“They do not cause an immediate pollution problem in the locality but there can be a build-up of mercury in waterways which can affect fish and aquatic life.”

Council bosses in Burnley are now looking for the best deal before purchasing the equipment.

Mr Goff said that the new crematorium equipment would also be able to accomodate oversize corpses - although only one case has had to be diverted to another facility in the past nine years because Burnley’s could not cope.

Coun Margaret Lishman, deputy council leader and cabinet member for resources, said: “The decision has been made because of the mercury emissions into the atmosphere.

“The cremators are not quite at the end of their working life and we have done this in plenty of time to procure new ones.”

Dentists were now more likely to use white fillings, she added, rather than amalgam alternatives, which could help to alleviate the difficulties in future.

But latest statistics also showed tooth decay rates in Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale for youngsters were significantly above the north-west average.

Around 16 per cent of all mercury emitted in the UK is said to be generated by crematoriums and this is estimated to increase to 25 per cent, because of the fillings issue, by 2025, officials from the Department of the Environment have said.

The crematorium is the only one in the area with plans to purchase new ovens.