"Do funeral directors do this? Yeah, but it's pretty hush-hush," he said.

Not being able to give pacemakers away can put the funeral homes in something of a bind, Penepent pointed out, especially if the deceased chooses cremation. Bodies can't be cremated with pacemakers inside because the medical devices can explode under the intense heat.

"It acts like a hand grenade," Penepent said.

Yet if funeral directors remove the pacemaker, they can't put it in the landfill because it's a biohazard and they can't dispose of it in an incinerator at a biowaste disposal site because of the explosion risk, Penepent said. But they're also not really supposed to hold onto or transport the devices, he added.

"We don't know what to do," Penepent said. "Funeral directors would love to send them to a charity. It's a catch-22. No matter what you do with this thing, it's wrong."

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