Lye and Let Die

Dissolving your corpse is the green way to go

Posted at 12:18 PM on 09 May 2008

Concerned about the environmental impact of your burial or cremation? Well, don't die. But if you must, consider a third option: have your corpse dissolved. In a procedure called alkaline hydrolysis, the deceased is put into a stainless-steel cylinder resembling a pressure cooker; application of lye, 300-degree heat, and 60 pounds of pressure per inch produces a brown, syrupy liquid that can be unceremoniously dumped down the drain. (It also leaves a dry residue that could be buried or displayed in an urn on the mantel, for those who wish.) The procedure has been used in the U.S. for over a decade to deal with animal carcasses, but hasn't found popularity -- or legality -- in funeral homes. But thanks to its environmental advantages, it could yet take off. "It's not often that a truly game-changing technology comes along in the funeral service," the newsletter Funeral Service Insider exclaimed recently, but "we might have gotten a hold of one."

source: Associated Press
see also, in Grist: Umbra advises on corpses

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Comments: (12 comments)

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Oh, my.

Jeez, Grist: dissolving corpses and coffin couches in one day? Kind of morbid for a Friday.

Alkaline hydrolysis grosses me out, but I'd consider it if I knew it was environmentally sound.

My biggest question concerns what happens when this human reduction is poured down the drain in large quantities. First of all, how much liquid would an average-sized human corpse generate?

Oh yeah, and somehow, I don't believe that a "coffee-colored liquid [with] the consistency of motor oil and a strong ammonia smell" can be "safely poured down the drain."

Research, please.

Lindsay Ratcliffe

by Lindsay at 2:03 PM on 09 May 2008

Waste not, want not...

Using the thermal depolymerization process your body could be converted into several gallons of bio-diesel, some nitrate rich liquid fertilizer and bone meal.

Just think, instead of polluting a chunk of ground you could fuel a tractor and provide fertilizer for a small bed of greens. You could even be a few rose bushes and a drive to your local museum.

Why waste it?

Put the Carbon Back

by Pangolin at 3:08 PM on 09 May 2008

Green Cemetery

Why not just get buried at a Green Cemetery where you are wrapped in canvas and buried with a piece of wood over you (to keep animals out)?

There was one where a sapling was planted over your corpse, and the decomposition would help fuel its growth.

Many of these cemeteries are also reforesting projects, or conservation projects.
No heat, no "coffee like" ooze...seems easier...and better for the planet...

by TheSSG at 3:52 PM on 09 May 2008

"What would the dear departed ...

... have greenly wished?"

This subject has in fact been discussed before.

The involvement of chemicals and high heat, and all the other effort, should not strike anyone as being particularly enviro-friendly, however much of an improvement it may be over a steel casket.

I like very much the ideas of Pangolin, and TheSSG; though I have metaphysical objections to the latter's phrasing, "YOU are wrapped," and "over YOU." But, let us be clear, YOU are no longer contained in that bit of primate hide any longer.

I myself would like to be got rid of by disposal on a beach at low tide, one with lots of crabs, mollusks, echinoderms, pecking birds and strong-beaked fishies. But my executors would have to be cagey, to avoid all kinds of legal complications ...

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 10:49 PM on 11 May 2008

Where are the editors?

This is a ridiculous article and anyone with half a brain should be able to see how a process that requires chemicals and heat is not environmental.

The environmental choice is to be buried, not in a coffin of course.

by bravedeer at 5:23 AM on 12 May 2008

I am truely green.

I am 31, and this is my death plan.

When I all old and bitter (well, actually I am bitter now, but anyway). I want to have party. Eat all the foods I love, play my fav. music, and just have a laugh. Dance a bit, laugh at all the be left in some remote mountain place, pop a few pills and die. My body will be eaten by animals. Now you can't be greener than that!

Now if I am off'd in some accident, I want to be cermated. - But I am really hoping for the mountain theme!

by javaearth at 7:31 AM on 12 May 2008

Maybe because it was Friday...

...the editors overlooked the blatant oxymoron that is this article. Thoughts of a lovely Mother's Day weekend distracted them from their duties of posting articles to guide the rest of us on our green journeys. I can only hope that's the reasoning behind this one... every now & then they just aren't paying attention to what they're doing.
I'm with TheSSG on this one, let your wordly body feed the earth from which it came! Why add chemicals to turn it into goo when it'll do that all on its own with a little help from Mother Nature?

by jennann429 at 8:32 AM on 12 May 2008

green burial

how about placing the corpse on a raised platform in a green space open to the sun? birds are very efficient at recycling and it somehow seems honourable to face nature after death instead of being preserved and put in a hole.

by earlysnows at 11:46 AM on 12 May 2008

Reef death...

...they just opened an underwater cemetary off the coast of Florida. The mix ashen remains in with cement headstones, all uniquely shaped to mimc natural rock formations. In a short amount of time, coral begins to grow over the headstones, enhancing the reef system.

Innovative, I think. It also makes for a good dive spot.

by Tasermons Partner at 12:01 PM on 12 May 2008

my goodness!

This method sounds neither respectful to the deceased nor environmentally friendly.

Natural decomposition has been the age old way to complete the cycle of life -- this returns nutrients to the environment and in my opinion is much more peaceful way to be remembered by your loved ones than being dissolved in caustic liquid.

I have doubts as to how environmentally friendly this process really is. It would take significant amts of energy to heat large volumes of lye with a person in it and the sheer volumes of lye dumped down the drain would be damaging for the environment in itself. I work in a biology laboratory, and we are not allowed to dump any volume (not to mention gallons and gallons) of extremely basic or acidic compounds down the drain without neutralizing the liquid first.

Isn't it just easier and more humane to just let nature take its course?

Jean

by jeanh at 1:52 PM on 12 May 2008

feeding animals

with my remains. i have always liked this idea.

by turanga leela at 2:33 PM on 12 May 2008

Feeding animals...

...good idea, but probably not feasible, due to health concerns.

May work with worms, maggots, and other decomposers, though.

by Tasermons Partner at 3:28 PM on 12 May 2008

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