19/07/2022
In a dark storage room beneath Canberra's Norwood Park Crematorium sits row after row of plastic boxes — each with a silent story to tell.
Every box contains cremated human remains — someone's sister, someone's grandparent, someone's child — and for a myriad of reasons, all of them are unclaimed.
Crematorium manager Stephen Beer estimates there are between 600 and 800 boxes of ashes in the storeroom, some dating as far back as the 1970s when the crematorium began operating.
"Some people just don't want to have them again," Mr Beer says.
"Some families have all passed on and there's no representative to actually pick up the ashes."
Or, Mr Beer says, sometimes people just find it too difficult to claim the ashes of their loved ones.
Full story ABC News.
