Aquamation: the greener alternative to cremation

Traditional cremation occurs when a body is placed in a furnace to reduce it to bones and other items that don't incinerate. The bones are ground up to form the cremains, or ashes as we know it. While cremation is greener in a lot of ways than traditional embalming an burial, there is an alternate way which uses less energy. Aquamation uses water and some chemicals to dissolve the body. It has a couple of advantages over traditional cremation and if you didn't know what process they were using, you would could not ell the difference since you still get the same cremains in an urn.

Speeding up decomposition
A fancy term that just means you use water and chemicals instead of fire for rapid decomposition of the body. Alkaline hydrolysis is the process that decomposes a body after a traditional burial. The same process, potassium and water is warmed up which speeds up the rate of decomposition to just a few hours. It is very much like putting the body into a stream of water to help decomposition. All jewelry and artificial joints are unharmed and can be reclaimed afterwards. The water used in the process can be cooled down and spread on a garden as a natural fertilizer. Just like in cremation, the bones are ground up and returned to you as ashes.

Religious objections
If you have religious objections to burning of the body through cremation, this is the process for you. It mimics the natural decomposition of the body through natural means. Buddhist have used a similar process by placing the body in streams with alkaline water to speed up natural decomposition.

Aquamation is available in Austrailia, the US, and is becoming the new alternative to traditional cremation. You can still go out in style with a nice memorial service followed by having your ashes spread in one of the most picturesque spots in the world. Forgo the traditional burial while having your body decomposed in a greener and more frugal way. Aquamation or cremation is the way to go.