When a person is cremated, what happens to the unburnt metal substances from their body such as gold teeth, fillings, artificial hips, and even unremoved shrapnel? Are they given to relatives?

infiniti

Seems they are either mixed in the urn with the ashes or given separately to rellies. http://www.oahucemetery.org/cremation_faq.html Jan 02 05, 6:09 AM

Buck540

Cremation is such an intense heat that everything burns up, gold and other metals would all melt. Jan 02 05, 9:05 AM

picqero

The cremation temperature at the website given by infiniti shows 1600 degrees but doesn't state if this is fahrenheit or centigrade. It makes quite a difference! As for Buck540's comment that the metals would all melt, this may be true, though you'd need about 2,500 F to melt steel. Even if the various metals achieved melting temperature, they would simply reform into solids after the cremation process as to burn them completely would take far higher temperatures than those needed to achieve melting. Hence my question still remains unanswered. Jan 02 05, 2:48 PM

gmackematix

In the UK relatives must remove jewellery and so on before the body is sent to the chapel because legally, any metal cannot be recovered after combustion. http://www.srgw.demon.co.uk/CremSoc/GeneralInformation/Know.html Jan 02 05, 9:21 PM