Water Cremation – Dissolving Human Body. Another Ecological Way of Burial

The world is paying more and more attention to ecological ways of burial. One of the most popular recently has been aquamation, which is cremation of bodies using water.

It was in 2012 when Desmond Tutu, a Bishop of the Anglican church from RSA died that the world heard about this unusual method of burial. The 1984 Nobel Prize winner last wish was that his funeral should be modest and his coffin cheap and simple. To comply with his wish it was decided that his body won’t be buried in the ground but will undergo aquamation.

Aquamation is a more ecological version of standard cremation. The body is placed in a pressure vessel filled with a mixture of water and potassium hydroxide. Then it is heated to 150 degrees C. In such environment the body almost completely decomposes within 3 – 4 hours. Al that is left is bones which are later dried, crashed and handed over to the family. All the remaining liquid (mostly water) is disposed of either into the sewer system or onto fields or gardens.

Water cremation is an environmentally-friendly way of burial. During the entire process no carbon oxide is released into the atmosphere and the energy consumption is much lower, too.

The method is not that new. It was patented in 1888 by a Brit called Amos Herbert Hobson. This is how we processed animal corpses to make fertilizers. Then aquamation was used to dispose carcasses of animals died as a result of the mad-cow disease pandemics. Since 2000 some American universities use bio-cremation to dispose of bodies they used for experiments and research.

Aquamation is legal in RSA, Mexico, Australia, some states of USA, Great Britain and Holland.