June 4, 2011
Cremated flesh vanishes. Bones shrink down to a few pounds of brittle slivers. But metal body implants easily outlast two hours or so of 1,800-degree flame. More funeral homes and crematories are recycling some of these remnants. Last month, Kearney A. Snyder Funeral Home Inc. in Lancaster sent its first shipment of “byproducts” to Implant Recycling LLC in Detroit, Mich. Charles F. Snyder Jr. Funeral Home & Crematory Inc. in Lititz also sends recyclers hardware such as replacement joints and pins that once helped knit together broken bones. Ditto for Leola-based Evans Eagle Burial Vaults Inc., which handles cremations for the rest of the 33 funeral homes in the county that do not have on-site crematories. The reclaimed metal is sorted, melted down and used to make new implants and other products. No law requires this. Morticians say they’re striving for greener operations as interest in cremation slowly builds.