Wow, they recycle the metal parts and the family doesn’t share in the recycling revenue? Seems unfair. If Uncle Joe had some expensive joints, which he supposedly paid for, why does someone else get to claim them and resell them once he passes? Doesn’t make sense.
If the deceased had executed an organ donor agreement, would that include re-usable bits of metal?
If you want to get upset: If you go to the medical establishment and they discover that you have an incredibly rare (and profitable) tissue type, they can market that tisssue and you are not entitled to a cent
There’s the old story about a small amount of early pacemakers that were powered by isotope heat decay units (i.e. nuclear batteries). It was important that these be removed before cremation as vaporizing and potentially breathing in nuclear material is not good. Pretty sure this was true, but very uncommon.
Of course dead people don’t own anything, but their estate and family become the new owners.
It isn’t like it is legal for me to rifle through the pockets of someone hit by a bus and grab their iphone, so why should a crematorium get to do this?
The executor/estate may own the possessions, goods, etc of the deceased, but they don’t own their remains; they have rights and/or duties with respect to disposal of the remains, but there is no ownership in a corpse.
Interesting question as to what the status of surgical implants, etc might be. Are they considered to be part of the corpse, and so incapable of ownership? Or are they considered to be personal possessions of the deceased, which pass as part of the estate? I suspect the latter but I don’t know.
In that case we’re talking about a few dollars. Scrap titanium runs maybe $8.50 a pound, sure it’s expensive compared to aluminum or steel, but nobody’s getting rich off a couple of artificial knees or hips.
A friend mentioned that his mother had to have one of her artificial joints replaced. (I can’t remember if it was the hip, knee or something else.) The old joint was returned to her, as it was considered her property. (He mentioned this in context of seeing marks from a pair of pliers on the joint and wondering at how much they had to struggle to remove it.) So I’d think at cremation, any artificial joints would be the property of the family.
When my mother was cremated, I requested and received her artificial hip. I received only the femoral ball and stem, not the acetabular cup, probably because the cup wasn’t metal.
My old company makes stainless steel hips and knees. Installing the hip joint, the drill and ream into the femur then pound in the steel joint with a hammer. It isn’t gentle or pretty.