REUTERS 3 December 2009, 12:24am IST
VANCOUVER (BRITISH COLUMBIA): Worried you haven’t been green enough in life? Don’t let death come in the way of a more eco-friendly you.
From coffins made of recycled cardboard to saying no to embalming chemicals that seep into the soil, people are increasingly searching for ways to make their final resting place a more environmentally-friendly one.
Now cremation, the choice today of a third of Americans and more than half of Canadians, is getting a green make-over. A standard cremation spews into the air about 400 kilograms of carbon dioxide — a greenhouse gas blamed for global warming — along with other pollutants like dioxins and mercury vapor if the deceased had silver tooth fillings.
Enter alkaline hydrolysis, a chemical body-disposal process its proponents call “bio-cremation” and say uses one-tenth the natural gas of fire-based cremation and one-third the electricity.
C0² emissions are cut by almost 90% and no mercury escapes as fillings and other metal objects, such as hip or knee replacements, can be recovered intact and recycled.
Matthews International Corp, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based company that makes caskets and other funeral products is planning the world’s first commercial launch of human alkaline hydrolysis in January at a funeral home in St Petersburg, Florida.
In alkaline hydrolysis the body is submerged in water in a stainless steel chamber. Heat, pressure and potassium hydroxide, chemicals used to make soap and bleach, are added to dissolve the tissue. Two hours later all that’s left is some bone residue and a syrupy brown liquid that is flushed down the drain. The bones can be crushed and returned to the family as with cremation.
Source:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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