the cities will sell the ashes of their dead

The town halls of Japanese cities, in demographic crisis, will sell the ashes of their dead to replenish the coffers.

Japan is experiencing a terrible demographic crisis and each year, the country loses almost a million inhabitants. As a result, thousands of municipalities find themselves with fewer and fewer residents and therefore less and less economic activity. To replenish the coffers, cities have decided to sell the ashes of people who have died and cremated in crematoriums. They contain, in fact, gold, silver, platinum, and even palladium.

In Japan, everyone is cremated, it’s the rule, and families only collect a small part of their deceased’s ashes. Cities must therefore manage tons of unrecovered ashes each year. This is how the idea of ​​reusing these ashes came about. After incineration, many precious metals are found, such as gold in teeth, platinum or palladium in joint prostheses, or even zinc, cobalt and titanium, which can come from various medical implants.

These metals represent a lot of volume, since the city of Kyoto released an estimate to its local media. By cremating 13,000 people over a period of nine months, she recovered 39 tonnes of ashes and in these 39 tonnes of ashes, there would be seven kilos of gold, 21 kilos of silver, six kilos of palladium and 200 grams of turntables. Sold on the market to specialized companies, this can generate an income of more than 700,000 euros. Other cities estimate that over the year, they will earn at least one million euros by reselling their ashes filled with metal residue.

There is no debate on the use of human ashes, since legally, those that the families do not want belong to the crematorium and therefore to the city. It can dispose of it as it wishes and the municipalities sometimes discuss it with the local population.

The commune of Tajimi, in the prefecture of Gifu, for example, has just launched a survey among its residents before embarking on this ash trade and 95% of them estimated that it was a question of a good idea.