The art of dying in a greenish way

Gone are the days when it was acceptable for your corpse to be placed on a large slab of rock and be picked apart by scavenging birds and animals.

These days, most people are dealt with by burial or cremation, and depending on the individual's beliefs, the body will be returned to the environment over a variable timescale.

Some religions, such as Orthodox Judaism, bury the body in such a way as to promote decomposition, while others try to slow the decomposition process down by embalming the body and constructing coffins that try to maintain the integrity of the body.

Cremation is the process favoured by the majority in this country, possibly for cost reasons or concerns about the amount of space available for burials in cemeteries.

However, many people are becoming uncomfortable with the environmental concerns associated with cremation, especially air pollution issues.

If you don't want to be treated with traditional methods following your death, what other alternatives are available?

There are many alternatives, although none are what you might call mainstream, and will only be available sporadically.

One technology now being actively promoted is Resomation, a process that mimics the final outcome of cremation but uses a very different process to arrive at a similar conclusion.

The basic method dissolves the body in a strong alkali solution rather than burning it, but the end product is an ash-like material (sometimes known as bio-ash) that can be returned to relatives.

So how does Resomation work, and is it as environmentally friendly as the manufacturers would have you believe?

The process takes place in a Resomator, a horizontal pressurised vessel.

The individual is placed in a dissolvable coffin on to a stainless steel mesh inside the vessel and the appropriate amount of alkali solution (potassium hydroxide) is added.

The vessel is then heated to around 160 degrees Celsius and the resulting steam provides the pressure.

After a period of approximately three hours the body is reduced to "bone shadows" and any mercury-containing fillings, hip joints etc., are also left behind.

The latter can be removed easily for recycling and are therefore not emitted to the atmosphere as is common in a cremation process.

On the face of it, the Resomation process is much less polluting than the traditional alternatives, with none of the air pollution issues associated with cremation or water pollution issues associated with traditional burials.

However, because it is a relatively new technology and deals with the breakdown of the body in a completely different way, it may be quite challenging to encourage funeral providers to invest in Resomation.

They will have to convince their customers that the technology will deal with their loved ones in a sympathetic and dignified way as well as extolling the environmental benefits of the system.