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Title: Get your body liquefied when you die
Source:
NewScientist
URL Source: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/o ... -machine-get-your-body-li.html
Published: Aug 27, 2011
Author: Helen Knight
Post Date: 2011-08-27 21:54:10 by Sebastian
Keywords: None
Views: 254
Fancy being liquefied, sir? Would you prefer your body to be buried or cremated when you die? How about freeze dried or liquefied? It may sound gruesome, but if you want to depart the world with the least environmental impact, it turns out you should opt for the latter. Alkaline hydrolysis, developed by Resomation in Glasgow, UK, dissolves the body by heating it in a chamber containing water and potassium hydroxide. Meanwhile, Cryomation, based in Woodbridge, also in the UK, freezes the body to -196º Celsius in liquid nitrogen before drying it in a vacuum and removing any metals such as mercury in dental fillings. Both technologies are aiming to turn the traditional colour of funerals from black to green, by reducing the environmental impact of body disposal, including the greenhouse gas emissions and land use. But is all this just greenwash, or are these new technologies really any better for the planet than conventional burial or cremation? To find out, funeral directors Yarden based in Almere in the Netherlands commissioned the Dutch research organisation TNO in Utrecht to compare the environmental footprint of the four processes. They found that of the four options, resomation has the least environmental impact. Indeed, the researchers found that when the recycling of precious metals recovered from the body during resomation is taken into account, the process is environmentally neutral. Using shadow prices, or the amount society would be willing to pay to reduce the damaging emissions produced by the different processes, they found that resomation had an environmental cost of 0 euros. Cryomation came a very close second, at 10 euros. By far the worst way to go, environmentally, is burial, says the report, at over 80 euros. This is largely a result of the amount of land used by graveyards, and the greenhouse gas emissions produced in manufacturing headstones and maintaining the cemeteries.
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