City governments mine precious metals from cremated bodies
Ever wonder what happened to grandma’s gold teeth? If she lived in Japan, there’s a chance that a city government made money by sifting through ashes of her cremated body and taking out precious metals:
The Asahi Shimbun asked officials of 20 major cities about the practice. Tokyo and Nagoya said they collect and sell precious metals taken from the remains. Niigata, Maebashi and Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, said they sell residual ashes and bone fragments.
The amount of bones collected by mourners at funerals varies by region. Most of the residual ashes and bone fragments left behind are handled by private businesses.
The Tokyo metropolitan government collected 700 grams of gold, 500 grams of palladium and 1.9 kilograms of silver from cremated remains in fiscal 2007, and turned a profit of about 3.2 million yen, officials said. The metropolitan government also pocketed about 90,000 yen worth of coins that were placed in the coffins before cremation.
An official at a metropolitan crematorium in Tokyo’s Edogawa Ward said mourners sometimes ask about the final destination of the ashes, but officials do not go out of their way to provide an explanation.
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Shocking.
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This is horrible, this is just legalised grave robbing.
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I like the picture of the Soylent Green plant. ^^
What about if the family would like grandma’s gold teeth for themselves?
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There’s a name for that isn’t there?
What is now… ?
Oh yeah, that’s right; THEFT.
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I call it recycling!
But really, the amount of metals they are able to gather from the remains is too small. I don’t see any point in doing this, especially considering that it may or may not be very ethical.
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That’s totally messed up
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Mind you, it’s an Asahi Shimbun report….
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And the number of organ donors remains low because people are worried about the use of their remains.
This is part of a much bigger problem. Organ donation rates will go up, among other things, when people feel the handling of remains is transparent. Good, bad, or otherwise, taking gold, palladium, or silver out of remains and/or selling remains without the consent of the family is far less ethical than harvesting organs from the corpses of people who did not consent.
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I know here in the U.S. you can ask to recover the gold from your loved ones’ teeth when they die. As for putting coins in the coffin of a person that is about to be cremated, I’m on the fence about that one. How about they just put a sign on the coffin that says “donations to the city government here”. At least then people will know what’s going to happen with their money…
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Does this offset the cost of the cremation? Or is the family paying full price only to have someone make even more profit off of their loved one’s remains?
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I don’t see why this would be ‘horrifying’. It seems like a quite good recycling scheme. Even though the ‘profits’ are marginal, all bits help.
Plus, the gold would give approx. 20,000 USD, palladium 3200 and silver 700. That’s not much, but still you could do some usefull work with it, and the resources are put back into the manufacturing cycle in stead of being lost.
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This wouldn’t bother me if the money they made was used to defray taxes or otherwise ‘recycled’. But I would imagine that any money made from this practice does not find its way back to the public.
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Lol, and it would be better to just dump it all into a hole, how?
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The main question is: is the money collected used to offer more affordable funeral service? Or is it spent in hostess bars?
One way or another, you need family consent for this.
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Hehe I rewatched Soylent Green just yesterday xD
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