Burning with water - The burial method is controversial

Instead of cremation or cremation, people can choose rest with alkaline hydrolysis, also known as water burning - a more environmentally friendly way of burial.

Born and raised in South Lake Long, Robert J Klink has been involved with water for a lifetime. Fishing, hunting mallards, then processing in place is his passion. Klink and his second wife, Judi Olmsted, also own two small cruise ships on the Saint Croix river.

Robert J Klink.(Photo: BBC).

Shortly before Mr. Klink died of colon cancer and liver cancer, Olmsted went to Bradshaw Center to share her desire to be cremated. However, she was surprised when the Bradshaw employees added another solution: instead of burning with ordinary fire, the body would be "burned" with water.

This is a 'gentle, environmentally friendly form, developed in the form of cremation' , in which lye and potassium hydroxide are used to decompose tissue, leaving only the dead bone.

Bradshaw funeral center is one of 14 places to provide waterbending service in the United States at the price of cremation, attracting unexpected customers. The staff here said that up to 80% of customers who do not want to be buried in the province choose waterbending.

'Customers choose this service because it is environmentally friendly. In addition, the selection is also related to emotional factors. Many people believe that water will be softer than fire , 'explains Anne Christ, director of services at Bradshaw.

"At first I did not understand, after thinking, I realized that this is probably the best way," said Olmsted, referring to her husband's water love.

Robert J Klint's portable bottle is located on a portrait photo with a flower basket visited.(Photo: BBC).

The $ 750,000 hydrodynamic machine was installed five years ago at the Bradshaw Center basement in Minnesota, USA.

'This is the first water funeral facility in Minnesota and one of the first places in the United States. The center regularly hosts visits from hospitals or churches , 'said Jason Bradshaw, center manager.

The observation room is round, the inside emits a strange murmur from a small artificial waterfall at a corner of the wall, a glass layer from the ceiling to the floor and several layers of sliding doors.

The machine, nicknamed 'tissue digestion machine', is a rectangular steel block, with a similar round lid that the submarine lid opens into the inner compartment.

Cremation machine.(Video: BBC).

With his colleague David Haroldsen, Bradshaw wears surgical gloves that push the stretcher into the burial room. The compartment cover opened, both lifting the tape across the compartment and sliding the body covered in black cloth.

The computer screen next to the machine displayed four buttons including unlock, check, operation and lock. Bradshaw closed the compartment cover, pressed the lock button, followed by a whistling sound of air echoing throughout the room. Then he selected the operating mode, two beeps sounded before the water began to fill the chamber.

Bradshaw, a biochemistry and chemistry expert, said the machine will calculate the body weight, then determine the amount of water and potassium hydroxide needed. The alkaline solution has a pH of 14, heated to 152 degrees Celsius but does not boil under compression conditions.

' Alkaline hydrolysis is a natural process that occurs with the body of a person buried. Here we create conditions for this process to happen many times faster , ' explains Bradshaw.

The machine is a rectangular steel block, with a round lid in front of the processing compartment.(Photo: BBC).

After 90 minutes of tissue decay, the rinsing procedure was carried out with the same time. After 3-4 hours, on metal stretchers only bones and artificial objects were implanted into the dead body before. The metal hip or knee is also intact.

The alkaline solution after decomposing the body will be put into a separate tank, beyond the view of the observer.

'The solution is colored like tea or beer, almost transparent. It smells like soap, not uncomfortable but obviously different , 'Bradshaw explained.

The pH of the solution will be checked and adjusted if necessary, before entering the sewer system. This is a sterile mixture of amino acids, peptides and no human DNA.

The bones are finely dispersed into white powder in Cremulator device.(Video: BBC).

The bone part of the dead after hydrolysis is dried in a special cavity, then espoused with a fine white powder by a device called Cremulator .

To date, the waterbender at Bradshaw Center has handled more than 1,100 bodies and operates almost every day.

Bradshaw said that sometimes relatives of the deceased expressed their desire to witness or participate in operating the machine with the center staff.

'There are families who want to help put the body in the machine or press the operation button. They say this is the last thing that can be done for loved ones , 'Bradshaw said.

'I was here with three children, they stood next to the machine and together pressed the operation button. It reminds me of a separation moment. '

Steps in the process of water burial.(Graphic: BBC).

Heritage of the dead

An estimated 150,000 people worldwide die every day. This number is expected to increase in the context of a constantly booming population.

In some countries, land for the dead is gradually depleted. Statistics show that in the next 20 years, more than half of cemeteries in the UK have no capacity.

In many areas of London, officials stopped providing burial services. The solutions offered include reusing grave graves by bringing the existing remains deeper and placing new coffins on top.

According to the BBC, both geography and cremation negatively affect the environment.

It is expected that in the next 20 years, more than half of cemeteries in the UK will not have capacity.(Photo: BBC).

Burial is the activity that causes people to continue to erode the resources of Earth's mother for the last time in life, from wood, metal to coffins, shrouds to stone tombstones. Activists in the United States said that each year the country consumes about 1.6 million tons of concrete and 14,000 tons of steel to build graves.

Similarly, the crematorium needs to produce huge amounts of heat, equivalent to heating a house during a winter week, to burn a dead body. The amount of CO2 released into the environment at that time was estimated at 320kg. Without alternatives, other toxic substances will leak into the environment, especially mercury from fillings, which often return to Earth through rainwater and accumulate in the internal food chain. country.

Compared to these two traditional methods, waterbending is more advanced in terms of the environment , according to Elisabeth Keijzer, expert of the Dutch Research Application Organization. Keijzer's research provides impressive evidence of the 'green' technology of the hydrodynamic method.

Jason Bradshaw stood next to a coffin at Bradshaw Center.(Photo: BBC).

In two reports published in 2011 and 2014, Ms. Keijzer divided geography, cremation, and water burial into dozens of small steps to assess environmental impacts such as holes in ozone layer, marine environment pollution, and climate change.

In 17 of the total items compared, funeral water brings the best effect, while cremation leads the danger. However, considering the overall environmental impact, geography is the most dangerous form.

The study results also revealed that water burial helps reduce CO2 emissions by 7 times compared to cremation. The cost of environmental damage compensation of this form is also the lowest with 2.88 USD / body. For cremation and geography, the number is 71 USD and 54 USD respectively.

Last choice

The idea of ​​the waterbender was derived from the foot-and-mouth epidemic in England in 2001. Witnessing that cattle were destroyed on fields that were potentially more widespread, biochemist Sandy Sullivan spent 5 years of lobbying for the European Union (EU) to allow the process of aseptic process of infected animals in alkaline hydrolysis machines produced by WR2.

Two years later, this method was applied to human burial, when Dean Fisher, an anatomy director at Mayo Medical Center in Minnesota, USA, came up with the idea of ​​using alkaline hydrolysis to treat corpses at hospital.

Despite being impressed with the process, Fisher felt that it was inappropriate to put the body from the top of the compartment vertically like a cattle destroyer. The machine is then adjusted in a horizontal direction, fitted with a tray to hold the bone and other artificial parts after the hydrolysis process.

This first version continued to be adapted to complete the prototype at the Bradshaw Center today. Recognizing the commerciality of the machine, Sullivan and a former WR2 executive, Joe Wilson, founded Resomation Ltd and Bio-Response Solutions, a leader in the construction of hydroplanes.

The funeral water is derived from the idea of ​​incinerating animal remains in a sterile environment.(Photo: BBC).

Challenge

Both companies face many challenges when introducing a new burial process to the public.

'This is a conservative market. When you come up with a new idea, you are not easily accepted , "Sullivan said, comparing this difficulty to similar cremation pioneers in the late 19th century.

Sullivan biochemist on his burial machine.(Photo: Alamy).

Contrary to the slow pace of legalization in the UK, the North American region is more likely to accept the form of waterbending. This burial rite has been approved in three Canadian provinces, 14 states in the US, and 5 other states are promoting the process of legalization.

However, the water remains still facing the reaction from the religious community.

"Destroying the body in chemicals then treating this solution as waste is not a way to show respect for a deceased" , quoted the episcopal letter to the Ohio state legislators, USA, in 2012. .

Similarly, the California episcopal conference also said that the human body 'with eternal soul, deserves to be respected'.

According to BBC, in fact, the way to deal with the solution after water burial is a problem that many people worry about.

'There is an opinion that we are treating relatives as a waste. This seems to be irreverent and inappropriate , 'said Philip Olson, a scientist at Virginia Tech.

However, the expert said that traditional burial practices such as geodesy, cremation or mummification actually created 'garbage'.

'If you look at the embalming process, you will see that the blood and organs are removed from the body as garbage. But unlike hydrolysis, they contain human DNA , 'he said.

In the religious community, nun Renee Mirkes also offers a similar view.

'Opposition to waterbodies mainly targets the remaining solution given to the sewage system. But the same thing happened through leaking into the soil after the cremation or cremation due to rain , "Mirker wrote in the 2008 American National Bioethics Journal.

Thuy burial was opposed by the religious community because of how to deal with the solution after the process of tissue decomposition like 'garbage'.(Photo: BBC).

Mirkes also emphasized that the cremation was initially opposed by churches until 1963, when Pope Paul VI insisted that religious people could freely choose the form of burial suitable for them.

Speaking of waterbending, Barbara Kemmis, executive director of the North American Cremation Association (CAN), remembers the discussion on this topic with two other delegates at a conference held recently in Nashville.

'One person seems disgusting and doesn't even want to mention it while the other compares this burial rite similar to a spa treatment,' said Kemmis.

"I've never known this method before, but I don't see any problems. After all, it's all a choice," Ms. Kemmis commented.