Interesting Facts

Metal implants from cremated human bodies are recycled. (Everything from steel pins to titanium hips and cobalt-chrome knees are reclaimed from the ashes. The co-founder of OrthoMetals, Ruud Verberne said that in Europe, an operation to provide a new hip may cost you around £5,000 ($8,000. 6,000 euros, but the return value as scrap is maybe, around £10 ($16, 12 euros) per kilo, and there are five hips per kilo.   The recycled parts don't get reused, instead it is melted down and gets used to make things like cars, planes, and even wind turbines.)

Britain is the biggest cremator in Europe. (73% of people who die choose to be cremated. I n the US the figure currently stands at 40%.  The reason cremations have risen so much is mostly to do with cost and space.     A traditional burial can cost four times as much as a cremation, and one survey showed 750 burials take up an acre of land. )

A funeral is the ceremony that is held after someone dies. (In the UK the dead person is usually buried in a coffin or cremated, and the ashes scattered. The reason I'm mentioning this word is that Elizabeth Taylor's funeral was held, and her coffin arrived 15 minutes late. She had requested this in her will, in order to fulfil the idiom "She'd be late for her own funeral". If someone says that someone would be late to their own funeral, they mean that they are always late for meeting or appointments.)

Around 430,000 cremations take place in Britain each year. (There is a problem though - obesity. Standard coffins range from 16-20 inches, but, because of growing obesity coffins up to 40 inches are becoming increasingly common and crematoriums are having to widen their furnaces.)

Human ashes are called cremains. (It is a shortened, elided version of cremated remains.)