Disposal of the dead

For over a thousand years, Zoroastrians have censured the pollution of the elements fire, water, earth and air and their preferred means of disposal of their dead reflects this concern. It is only now, after having ravaged the planet that the modern world talks of sustainability and carbon footprints.

However, with advances in technology the Zoroastrian way of disposal may no longer be the state of the art.

New methods of disposal of dead bodies have been researched with a view to lowering the environmental impact and it may be opportune for Parsis to keep abreast with these developments as alternatives where and when current practice may not be feasible.

Resomation is one such, patent pending, environmentally beneficial alternative to cremation and burial. It resorts to alkaline hydrolysis to break down the body in a steel chamber with potassium hydroxide at high pressure and a temperature of 180° Celsius. The process takes three hours, at the end of which a sterile liquid and bone ash remain. A mere three percent of the initial body weight persists as brittle bones which can be readily pulverized to a fine powder. Prosthesis, teeth fillings, pacemakers and other implants can also be recycled. The spent alkaline effluent water is sterile and free from any traces of DNA. It does not even need to be filtered, is comparable to domestic effluent and may safely be returned to the water cycle.

Cremation on average consumes the same amount of energy as a 500 mile journey in a medium sized car and releases 570 pounds of carbon dioxide per cremated corpse. The substitution of resomation for cremation is claimed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by approximately 35 percent and the energy needed for the resomation process in the form of electricity and gas is less than one-seventh of the energy required for a cremation. In the UK up to 16 percent of all mercury emitted into the atmosphere is estimated to be from crematoria from the fillings in teeth whereas resomation produces no airborne mercury emissions.

Alkaline hydrolysis as a method of final disposition of human remains is currently legal in Florida, Maine, Minnesota and Oregon; while Canada, England and Belgium await regulatory clearance.

In the wake of the diclofenac crisis and the near extinction of vultures, dakhmas have been equipped with solar concentrators to expedite decomposition. It is not inconceivable to adapt the very same towers of silence to dispose of the bone ash and aqueous effluent emanating from resomation.

For Zoroastrians who have led the way in the protection of the elements, resomation may be the way forward.

Dr HOMI DADABHOY SOONAWALA

Zoeterwoude, The Netherlands