An Alternative to Burial and Cremation for Corpse Disposal | WIRED
▻https://www.wired.com/story/alkaline-hydrolysis-liquid-biocremation
Enfin une solution propre et sans gaspillage énergétique pour remplacer les enterrements et crémations traditionnels ?
Alkaline hydrolysis ... was conceived in the mid-’90s to solve Albany Medical College’s problem of research rabbit disposal—the bodies were radioactive and therefore could not be burned or buried affordably—and in 2003 Minnesota became the first US state to allow its use on human remains. (The business of body disposal is highly regulated at the state level, and authorities are generally wary of novelty.) In the years since, a growing number of independent funeral homes have added alkaline hydrolysis to their list of services, and last October, California became one of a dozen or so states to legalize it. Jack Ingraham, CEO of Qico, a San Diego startup that’s joined the two established players in the field—the UK’s Resomation (creator of Fisher’s machine) and Bio-Response Solutions in Indiana—expects Utah to be next, with more states to follow as awareness spreads and demand grows. “Our goal is that, in 10 or 20 years, the term ‘cremation’ will be thought of entirely as a water-based process,” he says.
Les origines du procédé sont beaucoup plus anciennes. Pour le savoir il suffit de consulter l’article de Wikipedia cité plus bas. Restons méfiants envers les auteurs de Wired l’organe central des libertarians étatsuniens.
The alkaline hydrolysis machine turns cadavers into liquid and pure white bone.One obstacle to wider-spread adoption: Big Funeral needs to back it, and according to Fisher, who was a funeral director before working in body donation, industry leaders have been reluctant to offer it for a simple reason: “Money,” he says. “The big corporations—Service Corporation International, Carriage, Stewart Enterprises—have set up billion-dollar models to sell you a casket, give you a ride to the cemetery in that hearse, sell you the cemetery plot, and put up the marker.” Alkaline hydrolysis doesn’t require any of that.
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In a crematory retort, prosthetics melt or burn or, in the case of a pacemaker’s lthium-ion battery, explode. Titanium ball-and-socket hip joints don’t come out polished like a pristine mirror as they do in Fisher’s cupboard, they come out battered with carbon. The silicon breast implant that Fisher jiggles in his hand (“We call them jellyfish”) has already spent a good few years inside a woman and four hours inside the machine, but would melt like gum in a crematory. Other implants, like plastic urinary pessaries or penile pumps, would never even be seen by a crematory worker. They melt and escape into the atmosphere through the chimney along with the mercury in your teeth.
Alkaline hydrolysis (body disposal) - Wikipedia
▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaline_hydrolysis_(body_disposal)
The process was originally developed as a method to process animal carcasses into plant food, patented by Amos Herbert Hobson in 1888.
