Cremation – who gets the gold?

Gold prices are riding high. With an eye, if not a tooth, on profit nine South Koreans have been arrested for stealing, selling and buying melted gold teeth from cremation ‘braziers’.

Six workers at five crematoriums sold the metal to others including a jewellery shop owner and two gold merchants. One worker allegedly made around £11,000.

Sifting metal fragments from cremains is the norm. But who gets the valuable metal remnants from gold fillings? South Korea may have discovered an unexpected ‘anomaly’ in disposal, and there is no reason to imagine that elsewhere things happen any differently.

It’s a nice little earner, but one that can’t be sanctified under the re-use recycle banner!

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