Washington Post: Remains from 274 soldiers in landfill

Dec. 7 -- A scathing new report in the Washington Post details more of the scope of the Air Force’s practice of landfilling the incinerated partial remains of fallen soldiers.

The revelations come less than a month after the nation learned that the Dover Air Force Base mortuary, the entry point for the nation’s war dead from Iraq and Afghanistan, sent cremated and incinerated body parts of fallen soldiers to the King George County Landfill in Virginia.

The Post reported that the partial remains of 274 soldiers were sent to the King George landfill in what the newspaper calls a "secretive practice" by the Air Force. Even the medical waste contractor, MedTrace Inc. of North East, Md., said it was not told that the boxes it was picking up contained the remains of fallen soldiers.

Among the other revelations from the Post report:

* The practice was kept secret from families of the soldiers, and there are no plans to inform them now.

* The disposals were never formally authorized by the military.

* A total of 976 body parts and fragments from 274 soldiers and more than 1,700 other unidentified remains –- too badly burned or damaged to identify -- were landfilled.

* The practice might have occurred before the Air Force mortuary started its database in 2003. (The military said it did not know when the landfilling began.)

* The military still hasn’t returned calls from Waste Management Inc. lawyers inquiring about which haulers handled the waste. Waste Management operates the King George County Landfill, and the county owns it.

The practice of landfilling the cremated and incinerated partial remains of fallen soldiers ended in 2008. Now the ashes are buried at sea.

Contact Waste & Recycling News at editorial@wastenews.com or 313-446-6000.

w w w . w a s t e r e c y c l i n g n e w s . c o m