BBC Covers Resomation and Promession
AUGUST 31, 2011 TAGS:
The BBC covered the installation of an alkaline hydrolysis machine at the Anderson-McQueen funeral home in St Petersburg, Florida yesterday. The burial technology isn't new, but the installation signals a first step in introducing the process to funeral consumers in the U.S. It might be a tough sell.
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Alkaline hydrolysis, or Resomation as the Scottish firm that makes and markets the massive machines dubs the process, is a method of liquid cremation, where a body is put under high pressure and 330 degree heat and dissolved by a mixture of chemicals. The result? An environmentally friendly, entirely sanitary liquid runoff.
Sort of gross, right?
Reaction thus far has been a muted "Ewww." Whether the dignity and respect of burial or cremation can be achieved by this method of disposal is hard to tell. But the same might have been said about cremation back when it was being introduced to western societies last century.
The ecological benefits of resomation are many. It takes much less energy than cremation and mercury fillings and other metallic objects in a body are separated not burned and released into the atmosphere.
But resomation or bio-cremation, as the casket giant Matthews international calls it (they too sell the devices to funeral homes), faces regulatory challenges. Only seven U.S. states allow it for human disposal.
Last year, Natalie Pompilio looked into the rising profile of the process. Is it the new cremation for the Whole Foods set? Or just another manifestation of humankind's ever evolving ingenuity concerning death rituals.
Promession, another innovative technology waits in the wings.
Alkaline hydrolysis, or Resomation as the Scottish firm that makes and markets the massive machines dubs the process, is a method of liquid cremation, where a body is put under high pressure and 330 degree heat and dissolved by a mixture of chemicals. The result? An environmentally friendly, entirely sanitary liquid runoff.Sort of gross, right?
Reaction thus far has been a muted "Ewww." Whether the dignity and respect of burial or cremation can be achieved by this method of disposal is hard to tell. But the same might have been said about cremation back when it was being introduced to western societies last century.
The ecological benefits of resomation are many. It takes much less energy than cremation and mercury fillings and other metallic objects in a body are separated not burned and released into the atmosphere.
But resomation or bio-cremation, as the casket giant Matthews international calls it (they too sell the devices to funeral homes), faces regulatory challenges. Only seven U.S. states allow it for human disposal.
Last year, Natalie Pompilio looked into the rising profile of the process. Is it the new cremation for the Whole Foods set? Or just another manifestation of humankind's ever evolving ingenuity concerning death rituals.
Promession, another innovative technology waits in the wings.
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