Hi there.
I make jewelry and have been asked to do cremation jewelry. I would only require a small amount of ashes and would have to ship it back with the jewelry I made. Am I allowed to receive and send back ashes? Sorry, I tried to search on google and look at Japan Post but I couldn’t seem to find any information on it.
4 comments
Searched in Japanese.
https://152cocoro.jp/post-1727/
Says cremated remains can be sent domestically, but not internationally.
I haven’t looked it up but my guess is that human ashes are considered biological material which is not usually something you can ship across borders. It may even be considered a biohazard, not sure.
Even if it is possible I imagine you couldn’t do it without filling in a ton of paperwork and getting relevant licenses or permits (same as you would for shipping plants, pets, meat products etc).
May sound a bit morbid but wouldn’t be simple to ship a small amount in some kind of standard container? No one would check… Probably.
I am sure granny won’t mind if some of her is shipped inside a spice container so she can become some bitchin jewelry.
As I mentioned above, I researched this extensively in 2021. The consensus that I reached was powdered ash is probably okay, but ash with bone fragments is not. The bone fragments would need to be cleaned out first or crushed.
I apologize that I’m not up to searching for resources for you now about it, but can person who wants something made maybe ask someone to bring the ashes with them on an international flight to Japan? That’s an okay way to bring them into the country.