Well, you likely can’t, since that would require witnessing the entire process. You aren’t likely going to be allowed to do that. Afaik, no state in the US allows anyone other than the people running the crematorium to be present, and that have to have various certifications to do the job.
Which is where you can reach as close to certainty as it can get.
You look at the laws and regulations for the state you’re in. The states that have stricter requirements are going be essentially certain as long as they’ve been inspected regularly. Most places just aren’t going to risk being shut down or fined just to move a little faster.
The process for certification in some states even specifies, or requires the crematorium to detail, the exact process used to insure the right remains go in the fire, and that all reasonable steps are taken to remove all of the remains before further processing.
The stricter the state, the more certain you can be. Iirc NY is one of the tightest ones, and there’s something about the tools used to remove remains having to do the job, and how much is acceptable to be left behind. And, iirc, even the remains that can’t be sent out after that have to be cleaned up in a way so as to avoid mixing remains with the next. Maybe it’s California that goes that strict? Can’t remember exactly, but the process is pretty rigorous.
Other states just specify “all reasonable effort” be used, and don’t require the plan for more to ensure no mixing happens.
There’s a mortician that does a YouTube channel about funerary issues, Caitlyn Doughty. She’s pretty good about explaining things in an accessible but detailed manner. That link is to her video on cremation, but her other stuff is fascinating too.
Fwiw, I looked into all this stuff over a decade ago as research for a book series I was planning. Talked to medical examiners, morticians, and other death related jobs and the people that do them. There are places that cut corners, but even those tend to be reliable enough that what you get is almost entirely your loved one. They just skip some of the cleaning steps, so there’s “leftovers” in the crematorium or other workspaces. But it’s fairly rare. Most of the people doing the work are aware of not only how important it is to the bereaved, but how much it would cost for them to fuck up. So even the big chains don’t cut too many corners.
It was kinda reassuring talking to those folks. They’re talking to me off the record, no recordings, no written notes, no names. So they were all pretty open about mistakes happening, and the industry problems. They weren’t afraid to tell stories about them fucking up, and that fuck ups weren’t as bad as you’d think. We’re talking more about some of the remains being unrecoverable, but not all. Stuff like cleaning agents spilling, unexpected problems during the process. But none of it would result in someone getting the wrong remains entirely.
For that to happen, you’d have to have someone intentionally ignoring procedure, ignoring all the verification, and just dumping a body in essentially at random. It’s not that it couldn’t happen, it’s more that it would take more work to cause it than it would to do it right.
I wanna say there was a case of it in Virginia? Might have been North Carolina. But it was small crematory, and they got a lot of bodies in at once, and paperwork got fucked up enough that the guy telling the story wasn’t ever able to sort things out and be certain everyone got the right remains. He was relatively confident it got sorted out, but not 100%.
And rumors do get told about things going wrong after big disasters just because workers are overwhelmed. But they’re rumors, and it was always “I heard from this guy I met at a conference” kind of stories.
I intend to be cremated. I consider the risk of errors to be so marginal as to be irrelevant. Mind you, I don’t care for my own sake at all. Idgaf what happens to my corpse. Feed it to the birds, stuff it and mount out, whatever. But cremation is cheaper than other options, and I’m not willing to jump through the hoops to donate my body to anything.
Well, you likely can’t, since that would require witnessing the entire process. You aren’t likely going to be allowed to do that. Afaik, no state in the US allows anyone other than the people running the crematorium to be present, and that have to have various certifications to do the job.
Which is where you can reach as close to certainty as it can get.
You look at the laws and regulations for the state you’re in. The states that have stricter requirements are going be essentially certain as long as they’ve been inspected regularly. Most places just aren’t going to risk being shut down or fined just to move a little faster.
The process for certification in some states even specifies, or requires the crematorium to detail, the exact process used to insure the right remains go in the fire, and that all reasonable steps are taken to remove all of the remains before further processing.
The stricter the state, the more certain you can be. Iirc NY is one of the tightest ones, and there’s something about the tools used to remove remains having to do the job, and how much is acceptable to be left behind. And, iirc, even the remains that can’t be sent out after that have to be cleaned up in a way so as to avoid mixing remains with the next. Maybe it’s California that goes that strict? Can’t remember exactly, but the process is pretty rigorous.
Other states just specify “all reasonable effort” be used, and don’t require the plan for more to ensure no mixing happens.
There’s a mortician that does a YouTube channel about funerary issues, Caitlyn Doughty. She’s pretty good about explaining things in an accessible but detailed manner. That link is to her video on cremation, but her other stuff is fascinating too.
Fwiw, I looked into all this stuff over a decade ago as research for a book series I was planning. Talked to medical examiners, morticians, and other death related jobs and the people that do them. There are places that cut corners, but even those tend to be reliable enough that what you get is almost entirely your loved one. They just skip some of the cleaning steps, so there’s “leftovers” in the crematorium or other workspaces. But it’s fairly rare. Most of the people doing the work are aware of not only how important it is to the bereaved, but how much it would cost for them to fuck up. So even the big chains don’t cut too many corners.
It was kinda reassuring talking to those folks. They’re talking to me off the record, no recordings, no written notes, no names. So they were all pretty open about mistakes happening, and the industry problems. They weren’t afraid to tell stories about them fucking up, and that fuck ups weren’t as bad as you’d think. We’re talking more about some of the remains being unrecoverable, but not all. Stuff like cleaning agents spilling, unexpected problems during the process. But none of it would result in someone getting the wrong remains entirely.
For that to happen, you’d have to have someone intentionally ignoring procedure, ignoring all the verification, and just dumping a body in essentially at random. It’s not that it couldn’t happen, it’s more that it would take more work to cause it than it would to do it right.
I wanna say there was a case of it in Virginia? Might have been North Carolina. But it was small crematory, and they got a lot of bodies in at once, and paperwork got fucked up enough that the guy telling the story wasn’t ever able to sort things out and be certain everyone got the right remains. He was relatively confident it got sorted out, but not 100%.
And rumors do get told about things going wrong after big disasters just because workers are overwhelmed. But they’re rumors, and it was always “I heard from this guy I met at a conference” kind of stories.
I intend to be cremated. I consider the risk of errors to be so marginal as to be irrelevant. Mind you, I don’t care for my own sake at all. Idgaf what happens to my corpse. Feed it to the birds, stuff it and mount out, whatever. But cremation is cheaper than other options, and I’m not willing to jump through the hoops to donate my body to anything.