Metal hips from dead used for road signs
Metal body parts from the dead are being recycled into road signs, lamp posts, car parts and aircraft engines as part of a scheme involving councils across the Black Country and Staffordshire, it emerged today.
Steel hips, plates and screws from legs and skulls are collected after cremation and sent off for recycling.
Councils in Dudley, Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Stafford all use the practice, which also sees tiny fragments from fillings and false teeth recycled.
Walsall Council does not take part in the scheme.
High value metals which survive the cremation are sold for use in the automobile and aeronautical industries.
They include cobalt and titanium, found in some implants and dental work, with cobalt used in aircraft engines.
But other less valuable metals are smelted down and sold for more general use – including road signs, motorway barriers and lamp posts.
The metal salvaged from cremations is collected by contractors who take it to specialist plants for recycling.
Money made is donated to charity and almost £1million has been raised for good causes since the project began in Britain in 2004.
The Dutch company behind the recycling says around half Britain's 260 crematoriums have signed up to the scheme which is generating 75 tons of metal a year.
Relatives are asked if they want to keep metal parts of loved ones before cremations by the centres taking part in the scheme.
Dudley Council has been sending metal recovered after cremations to the recycling scheme for three years, with the consent of relatives.
Councillor Tracy Wood said: "Over the last three years, Dudley has subscribed to the not-for-profit recycling scheme for metals recovered from the cremation process. Relatives give their consent to allow us to recycle metals that remain following cremation."
Stafford Borough Council uses a company called OrthoMetals which recycles cremated remains.Council spokesman Will Conaghan said: "We've used them for some time."
Ruud Verberne, owner of OrthoMetals, the Dutch company behind the recycling, said: "Metals reclaimed from cremations are being increasingly re-used.
"High value metals such as cobalt go into the aircraft or automotive industries. Others are sold to smelters and foundries and it is possible that they end up as roadsigns or motorway barriers – there's no way of knowing."
