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Heat created by burning the dead at crematoria could be used to keep mourners warm under plans to make funerals more environmentally-friendly. Instead of letting the gases emitted by cremation escape into the atmosphere, councils want to use them to heat radiators or even generate electricity. They admit some might find the idea of being kept warm by the remains of their loved-ones macabre. But there are thought to be no religious objections, and ever-tighter controls on pollution mean such systems could become commonplace.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - China's worst fuel crunch in years has led a crematorium to dump half-burnt corpses to try saving on diesel costs, a Hong Kong newspaper said on Friday. Villagers in Hengyang county, in the southern province of Hunan, discovered the practice when an "unbearable stench" started coming from the site, and tried to block a road on Wednesday to stop funeral vehicles from delivering more bodies. The village sent people to investigate the smell and the South China Morning Post said they saw "crematorium workers putting half-burnt human remains and organs in plastic bags and throwing them...

Exposing Shocking Horrors Inside Sujiatun Concentration Camp By Ji Da Epoch Times Staff Mar 11, 2006 A reporter from China who worked for a Japanese television news agency and specialized in Chinese news recently escaped to the United States after being wanted in China for reporting on controversial issues. (The Epoch Times) High-res image (1200 x 900 px, 72 dpi) [ Warning: graphic photos below ] Falun Gong Practitioners a Cheap Source of Black Market Organs In recent years, international organ buying and selling markets have had extreme shortages. As the world's most populous country with the death penalty, China...

For the first time in Israel a crematorium, which is strictly prohibited by halochoh [Jewish religious law], has been installed. The crematorium, set up by a company called Alei Shalechet (Leaves of Fall), was used to burn the body of a non-Jew last week, but many fear secular Jews as well will ask to have their bodies burned. This serious breach is liable to undermine the belief in the eternity of the soul and the concept of kovod hameis [respect for the remains of the dead], which have been firmly entrenched in the Jewish people since time immemorial and manifested...

The Georgia lawyer who won $80 million for victims of the Tri-State Crematory down South - where rotting bodies were found strewn in woods and potting soil was passed off as ashes - is now going after a Quincy funeral home for human atrocities. In a suit to be filed Wednesday in Norfolk Superior Court, Braintree attorney Mark Gladstone and Robert Smalley of Atlanta, who has agreed to be co-counsel, will charge Hamel, Wickens & Troupe Funeral Home of intentional mishandling of a corpse, negligence and breach of contract on behalf of a widow who believed her beloved husband of...

It is rumored that cremators sell clothes and jewelry of the deceased There are a lot of horrifying stories and rumors about crematoriums. Cremation as a funeral ceremony has been practiced for ages - some nations consider it an absolutely natural farewell to the deceased, whereas other shudder even at the thought of it. Cremation was a common practice with the Etruscans in Europe; the Greeks and the Romans borrowed the custom afterwards too. Christianity pronounced cremation paganism. Karl the Great outlawed cremation, punishable by the death penalty in the year 785, which made it disappear for about a thousand...

Charges in burial fraud case AP in Georgia The Guardian (UK) A man accused of dumping decaying bodies around the crematorium he ran in Georgia, pleaded not guilty yesterday to 122 charges of burial service fraud and 47 of making false statements. Ray Brent Marsh, 29, also faces charges of abuse of a body, and theft. At the hearing he pleaded not guilty to the burial service fraud and false statements charges. His lawyer, Ken Poston, said Mr Marsh was withholding pleas on 179 charges of abuse of a body and 439 of theft. The lawyer called those charges "defective"...

A crematorium in Stockholm has opted to become more environmentally friendly by pumping the excess heat from its furnace into the city’s central heating system, reports the Swedish national newspaper Dagens Nyheter. Five years ago, the Racksta crematorium offered to channel its excess heat to water carried through the city’s central heating system to warm houses and apartment blocks. At the time, power company Stockholm Energi declined the offer, believing that the move would be unpopular with the public. But the offer remained, and instead of condemning the idea as unethical, a number of bishops and members of the public...