By David Monniaux - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link Zurich crematorium starts to trade precious metals filtered from people's ashes

Switzerland's largest crematorium has put in place technology to filter precious metals from the 6,000 or so bodies that are cremated in its facility each year. Only one in three are opting in for the filtering process though.

Gold, silver and platinum nuggets that survive the intense 700 Celsius fires are all that remain after a body is burnt at the Nordheim cremation facility – Switzerland's largest – in Zurich. Approximately 6,000 corpses are cremated here each year.

As of earlier this month, Nordheim has put in place a machine that filters out precious metals from the ashes and the crematorium then sells them to recycling firms for profit.

There has been some debate as to whether the earnings should be returned to the deceased's beneficiaries or go into state coffers. The latter is what is happening. The recycling project is set to earn the city of Zurich 100,000 Swiss francs (€87,700) in revenue each year. Read more.