The Cellar - May 23rd, 2018: Recycle Extreme

Since burial plots are getting crowded and expensive any bodies which are not buried are burned, dissolved, or turned into Soylent Green.
The latter three methods will deal with any plastic toys the deceased might have been enjoying when they kicked, but an increasing
number of people have man made parts inside. Hips, knees, plates, screws, electronics, down to metal dental fillings.

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In 2012, Mount Pleasant became the first crematorium operator in Canada to recycle the non-organic materials in humans.
The process begins like any other cremation, with a body inside a container or casket being incinerated at temperatures exceeding 800 degrees. Once complete, motors and filters inside the chamber separate ash and bone fragments. These are the human remains.
But the same system also segregates metals and other materials that haven't burned. Medical implants are too damaged at this point to be reused as designed, but with the permission of a dead loved one's family, those precious metals can be recycled.

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Rather than being diverted to a mass grave in a cemetery, however, the metals are collected by OrthoMetals, a Dutch firm that specializes in post-cremation recycling.
Established in 1997 by a surgeon and his business partner, OrthoMetals collects the recycling bins from crematoria in more than 30 countries. Mount Pleasant was its first client in Canada, and the company has continued to expand its business across North America.

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While a titanium hip, for example, can cost $4,000 to purchase new, the salvageable value is much less — a crematorium gets only about 20 cents back from recycling the part. The Mount Pleasant Group, for instance, received $44,000 last year, which it uses to support hospice and palliative care in Ontario.

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