Alkaline Hydrolysis or Bio-Cremation: Live Green, Die Green

Do you want to reduce your personal "carbon footprint" and be eco-friendly to the environment at the same time? Is your life's end goal one that embraces not adding more chemicals and other toxins to the Earth and its atmosphere? Are you looking for an alternative to traditional burials that encompass embalming fluids and materials that may take years, if not centuries, to degrade into their respective natural components?

Currently, one solution is a green burial that consists of a body buried without embalming fluids (which are rife with poisonous toxins) in order to reduce the amount of chemicals leaching into water reservoirs, and where casket construction is from biodegradable materials. A green cremation also disallows the use of embalming chemicals and special filters are used to trap toxins that can escape into the atmosphere during the cremation process. Both methods are valid methods of allowing disposal of human remains to be eco-friendly.

Nevertheless, there is a new kid on the block that offers a different sort of green "cremation" and yet another alternative solution to traditional burial practices. You may wish to consider a process called "Alkaline Hydrolysis" or "Bio-chemical Cremation". Already used in carcass disposal of research animals, roadkill, or culled, diseased herds of cattle and deer, it is a quick, safe, and sanitary method of breaking down proteins, pathogens, and viruses.

During this process of alkaline hydrolysis, a human body is placed into a steel tube or drum-like container, covered with water that is heated to 350 degrees, along with the addition of a strong alkaline substance called potassium hydroxide (lye). Potassium hydroxide, commonly used to make soap and glass, breaks down the body's tissues and smaller bones.

The entire contents are placed under high pressure of approximately 60 pounds per square inch and this combination of pressure, heat, and potassium hydroxide only takes two to three hours to accomplish what nature may take years to do. The result is almost total body decomposition with only a few bones and some brown, coffee-colored fluid remaining. The chemicals and extreme heat soon reduce the body into an almost totally liquid form with very little solids remaining. This accelerated method of natural decomposition of the body, allows it to be reduced to natural products that are cleanly washed away.

Any remaining residue, usually consisting of bone, is then crushed or ground into a finer grit-like substance, placed in a container similar to that used for ordinary cremains, and delivered to the person's surviving relatives.

Alkaline hydrolysis significantly lowers greenhouse gas emissions commonly given off through normal cremation processes. Since there are no caskets or other material to burn, this process protects trees and reduces CO2 to the atmosphere. Mercury emissions are practically non-existent because all dental fillings or other metal in the body are removed and can even be recycled.

In addition, less energy is used, consuming approximately one tenth of natural gas and/or one third of electric that is needed for a normal cremation. Although there is a certain "ick factor", alkaline hydrolysis is truly a natural, green method for the disposal of human remains.

Sources:
Corpses dissolve in eco-friendly bio-cremations, Reuters, February 10 2010
About Alkaline Hydrolysis, www.Resomation.com