Joint Replacements Recycled? (written by Biloine Young @ OTW)
With American orthopedists installing more than a million artificial hips and knees a year in mostly aging patients (according to The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons) has anyone thought about the ultimate fate of all those metal implants? One who has is Ray Saadeh, founder of Alternative Solutions USA, a California start up that collects used joint replacement parts.
They arrive at his warehouse in 10 gallon drums, shipped to him by crematoriums around the country. Saadeh sandblasts the parts and sorts them out. He then ships them on to be recycled, melted down and eventually turned into other objects, possibly even new implants.
Saadeh is believed to be the only nonprofit in the West that salvages orthopedic body parts. In the past, such items would have been tossed in the trash or buried. Crematories have never been exactly sure what to do with recovered implants. “These metals have a useful second life,” said Tom Snyder, a vice president with Stewart Enterprises of New Orleans, which owns 400 funeral homes, crematories and related businesses. “Quite frankly, burying them is not very environmentally friendly and provides no benefits to anyone.”
Alternative Solutions collects the implants at no cost to the crematories, providing the barrels and footing the shipping costs. It can take several months for a crematory to fill a drum. Saadeh sells the material to a Los Angeles recycler and turns over about 60% of the money to the American Red Cross and other charity groups designated by the crematories. Alternative Solutions has donated $45,000 so far, after a year in operation. Saadeh wants to increase that to $2 million annually as he works with more crematories—now at 160 nationwide. The number of people being cremated is up sharply and, sometime around 2020, cremations are expected for the first time to exceed burials nationwide, according to the Cremation Association of North America.