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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

It's not an acid bath. It's an alkaline bath [businessinsider.com]:

When it comes to putting loved ones in their final resting places, our choice has long been whether to bury a body or cremate it. But a third option has been gaining attention recently: Alkaline hydrolysis [greencremation.com], which involves dissolving a body in a liquid solution. The process leaves behind bones that can be ground into ash using much less energy than cremation. Though it sounds a bit gruesome, the approach offers many benefits. "This by far is the most environmentally friendly choice" Dean Fisher, director of the Donated Body Program at UCLA told Wired [wired.co.uk].

[...] Having a body cremated may seem like a sustainable burial, but in most cases it's not great for the environment. In cremation, everything is burned into ash, including bone and medical implants. That can lead to the release of harmful pollutants. In the UK, for instance, cremation contributes to 16% of all mercury pollution [theguardian.com]. And as The Atlantic has reported [theatlantic.com], cremation takes about two SUV-tanks worth of gas to cremate a single body. Alkaline hydrolysis, on the other hand, requires only an eighth of that energy, Gizmodo reports [gizmodo.com].

[Insert Aug. 25 NPR story or transcript when it becomes available.]

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