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New body 'liquefaction' unit unveiled in Florida funeral home
bbc ^ | Neil Bowdler | Neil Bowdler

Posted on 08/31/2011 7:08:13 AM PDT by tlb

A Glasgow-based company has installed its first commercial "alkaline hydrolysis" unit at a Florida funeral home.

The unit by Resomation Ltd is billed as a green alternative to cremation and works by dissolving the body in heated alkaline water.

The facility has been installed at the Anderson-McQueen funeral home in St Petersburg, and will be used for the first time in the coming weeks. It is hoped other units will follow in the US, Canada and Europe.

The makers claim the process produces a third less greenhouse gas than cremation, uses a seventh of the energy, and allows for the complete separation of dental amalgam for safe disposal.

"Resomation was developed in response to the public's increasing environmental concerns," company founder Sandy Sullivan told BBC News. "It gives them that working third choice, which allows them to express those concerns in a very positive and I think personal way."

The system works by submerging the body in a solution of water and potassium hydroxide which is pressurised to 10 atmospheres and heated to 180C for between two-and-a-half and three hours.

Body tissue is dissolved and the liquid poured into the municipal water system. Mr Sullivan, a biochemist by training, says tests have proven the effluent is sterile and contains no DNA, and poses no environmental risk.

The bones are then removed from the unit and processed in a "cremulator", the same machine that is used to crush bone fragments following cremation into ash. Metals including mercury and artificial joints and implants are safely recovered.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; US: Florida; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: bodies; dissolving; funerals; melting
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To: tlb

No thanks. I saw “Troll 2” on the Chiller channel.


21 posted on 08/31/2011 7:23:12 AM PDT by Alex Murphy (Posting news feeds, making eyes bleed: he's hated on seven continents)
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To: NonValueAdded
>>>New jingle: ♫ and away goes mama, down the drain ♫ Roto-relative.
22 posted on 08/31/2011 7:24:56 AM PDT by Keith in Iowa (Hope & Change - I'm out of hope, and change is all I have left every week | FR Class of 1998 |)
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To: tlb

Wow, being turned into goop and flushed down a toilet is totally worth it if it saves 1/3 the greenhouse gas emissions. Not to mention preventing dental amalgam from contaminating our precious graveyards. And I’m sure that municipal water treatment wont mind large volumes of pH 11 liquids screwing up their activated sludge tanks.


23 posted on 08/31/2011 7:26:03 AM PDT by Hacklehead (Had enough?)
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To: a real Sheila
I was thinking wood chipper myself.


Say what?

24 posted on 08/31/2011 7:26:39 AM PDT by JRios1968 (I'm guttery and trashy, with a hint of lemon. - Laz)
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To: concerned about politics

If it ain’t brown, drink it down!


25 posted on 08/31/2011 7:27:38 AM PDT by JRios1968 (I'm guttery and trashy, with a hint of lemon. - Laz)
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To: tlb
Body tissue is dissolved and the liquid poured into the municipal water system.

They better not do this to Keith Richards when he passes......it would take 3 days for the buzz to wear off if people drank that water.

26 posted on 08/31/2011 7:28:30 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Hacklehead
Wow, being turned into goop and flushed down a toilet is totally worth it if it saves 1/3 the greenhouse gas emissions.

You can tell how much a society values the living by how they treat their dead.

27 posted on 08/31/2011 7:28:37 AM PDT by concerned about politics ("Get thee behind me, Liberal")
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To: tlb

There is a book called Stiff by Mary Roach (highly recommended) which talks about a new green tech that’s much better than this one. Your freeze dried and then they use ultrasonic waves to break you up into small particles. The process kills all bacteria and viruses but doesn’t destroy the nutrients. The powder that’s left would be put in the ground and a new tree planted above it as your memorial. Cremation destroys most of the nutrients so this is better. No hazardous chemicals. The process is inexpensive especially compared to cremation.

The book is about how we treat dead bodies. It’s informative and some what funny. She wrote another couple books: Boink (on sex) and Packing For Mars (about space flight). In both you’ll learn a lot you didn’t know.


28 posted on 08/31/2011 7:31:12 AM PDT by airedale
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To: Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus

self-ping


29 posted on 08/31/2011 7:37:52 AM PDT by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus ("A gentleman considers what is just; a small man considers what is expedient.")
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To: concerned about politics
Drink up everybody!

If the recently deceased was a comedian, would that make the water taste funny?

30 posted on 08/31/2011 7:51:31 AM PDT by tbpiper (Sarah Palin is the antivenin for the Obama poison)
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To: tlb

So that is how you get rid of a body. And I was thinking meal worms where the way to go. Heck this process only takes a few hours. The potasium hydrox might be a little hard to come by, and the bones still need to be disposed afterwards, but hey, I can put those in a furnace first and powder what is left and then get rid of the powder.

/sarc


31 posted on 08/31/2011 7:55:54 AM PDT by taxcontrol
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To: a real Sheila

The problem with the wood chipper is the DNA evidence that is left behind.


32 posted on 08/31/2011 7:57:38 AM PDT by taxcontrol
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To: JRios1968
If it ain’t brown, drink it down!

OMG. "You are what you eat." What if I drink a dead liberal ??

33 posted on 08/31/2011 7:57:54 AM PDT by concerned about politics ("Get thee behind me, Liberal")
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To: SpaceBar

But I though you could only do that to the body’s fatty tissues (a la “Fight Club”) What about the rest of the corpse?


34 posted on 08/31/2011 8:04:00 AM PDT by sinanju
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To: cripplecreek

What about the bones??


35 posted on 08/31/2011 8:07:22 AM PDT by ridesthemiles
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To: tlb

This is how they made dirt in the movie Water World. But I’m probably the only one here that saw it.


36 posted on 08/31/2011 8:14:05 AM PDT by 762X51
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To: ridesthemiles

“What about the bones?”

Sounds like they cremate the bones and then crush them up like a usual cremation. The only difference that I am seeing, is the body is boiled of its flesh first instead of cremating the entire body. What concerns me is the dumping of the chemicals and “soup” (for lack of a better word) into the drinking supply.


37 posted on 08/31/2011 8:15:04 AM PDT by momtothree
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To: ridesthemiles
What about the bones??

Just spit 'em out!

38 posted on 08/31/2011 8:20:51 AM PDT by concerned about politics ("Get thee behind me, Liberal")
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To: tbpiper

Wait until the first time a sewer backs up into a basement or a storm forces dumping into a waterway.


39 posted on 08/31/2011 8:26:33 AM PDT by sbMKE
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To: tlb

They should call the company Sietch Tabr.


40 posted on 08/31/2011 8:30:30 AM PDT by struggle
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