Funny I recently read an article about what a bad idea this actually is, as well as using this shit in agriculture.
"...There are other benefits to alkaline hydrolysis, proponents say: Inorganic materials like tooth fillings and breast implants are left behind by the process. That could ease fears of toxic chemicals such as mercury from burned tooth fillings polluting the air near crematoriums—and of pacemakers exploding inside crematoria.
Alkaline hydrolysis produces no smoke to worry about. But is the soapy soup it dumps into the sewer safe? Disease should not be a problem because the roiling lye sterilizes the organic material, says Joe Wilson, CEO of Bio-Response Solutions. The company, based in Danville, Ind., built many of the low-cost units now used in funeral homes, including Jeff Edwards’s in Ohio. “It’s hot as hell in there, and alkali is a powerful sterilant at temperature,” Wilson says. Testing on animal carcasses, much of which has been peer-reviewed, seems to back his claims. “Even the hardiest pathogen, an anthrax spore, is easily killed,” he says, adding that the process also breaks down toxic chemicals such as embalming fluid.
One worry might be amount of water used in the process—about 300 gallons per corpse. Gloria says this might be a consideration during droughts but is otherwise a drop in the bucket. “If every Californian who died in one year used water cremation, it would amount to 64 million gallons of water in that year,” he says. “One L.A. [water] treatment plant uses more than 500 million gallons in a day.”
Of greater concern is the high pH involved in the process, which scuttled the first California bill seeking to legalize alkaline hydrolysis. The machine at U.C.L.A. discharges waste that is a stronger base than a typical household drain unclogging fluid; it exceeds pH 11, the limit for discharge into the environment set by Los Angeles to protect against corrosion of skin and metal. Other cities have even stricter standards. In San Francisco nothing beyond pH 9 can go down the drain. Fisher’s device can add acid to lower pH before disposing of the remains; others bubble in carbon dioxide.
But California is not taking chances. Responding to concerns from the California Association of Sanitation Agencies, the new bill requires funeral homes offering alkaline hydrolysis to apply to their local water authority for a permit to send the liquid remains into the sewer on-site—or to pay a company experienced in biological waste disposal to get rid of them." (scientific american article)
(post is archived)