HELPING TO SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT

The Econuts strike again. What more can I say?
　
BELGIUM PLANS TO DISSOLVE BODIES IN CAUSTIC SOLUTIONS… AND FLUSH THEM INTO SEWAGE SYSTEMS
By Allan Hall
　
Mail Online
July 7, 2010
　
The EU is considering proposals from Belgian undertakers to be allowed to dissolve dead bodies in caustic solutions to help save the environment.
　
The remains could then be flushed into the sewage systems of towns and cities to be recycled at water processing plants.
　
If approved in Belgium, EU law would allow for the procedure to be used in the UK.

Those behind the controversial new method say it is less expensive and more environmentally-friendly than running highly-polluting crematoria or using up valuable land for graves.
　
But critics say it smacks of 'Frankenstein callousness' towards the dead and that people will find the idea disturbing.
　
A spokesman for the Flemish Association of Undertakers told Germany's Der Spiegel magazine: 'The idea is for the deceased to be placed in a container with water and salts and then pressurised and after a little time, about two hours, mineral ash and liquid is left over.
　
The European Commission is checking whether the liquid could be flushed into the sewage system.
　
Authorities in the northern Belgian region have yet to decide whether to approve the process.
　
The process of reducing a body to ash is called chemical hydrolysis and has been used on a large scale in recent years in the destruction of cattle found to have BSE.
　
Known as 'resomation', the process significantly reduces the 573lb of carbon dioxide that the burning of a single body puts into the atmosphere.
　
The body is placed in a steel chamber along with potassium hydroxide at high pressure and a temperature of 180C - 80 per cent cooler than a standard crematorium.
　
The increased pressure and temperature means the body reaches a similar end point to standard cremation in two or three hours.
　
Six states in the U.S. - Maine, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Oregon and Maryland - recently passed legislation which allowed for resomation.
　
Although experts insist that the ashes can be recycled in waste systems, the residue from the process can also be put into urns and given to the relatives of the dead.