Greener In Death
How alkaline hydrolysis β or βwater cremationβ β offers a greener way of dealing with the body after death.
This is a story about what happens to your body after you die. In many countries, the current options are burial and cremation, but, both methods come with significant environmental impacts. Weβre running out of space for burial in many places, and cremation carries the risk of toxins and greenhouse gases being released. For World Hacks, Sahar Zand travels to the US, where theyβre using a new process to deal with the dead. Itβs been called βgreen cremation,β βwater cremationβ or βresomationβ and uses alkaline hydrolysis to mimic and accelerate the breakdown of tissue that would occur in burial. Those who invented the process say itβs an environmentally friendly way to address this fundamental moment in the human life-cycle, but does the evidence stack up?
Reporter: Sahar Zand
Presenter Mukul Devichand
Image: A resomation machine / Caption: ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ
People fixing the world on YouTube
Watch stories of people changing their world on the World Service English YouTube channel
Podcast
-
People Fixing the World
Brilliant solutions to the worldβs problems